How To Save A Life
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: When the exchildhood sweetheart of Johnny Storm leaves him with their child, unable to cope with her similiar powers to his, his first instinct is to reject his daughter. However, can expecting parents Sue and Reed teach him how to love his child? COMPLET
1. That's Not My Daughter Anymore

Prologue:

Hallile leaned back in her chair with a heavy sigh, one which she just couldn't hold in any longer. She was exhausted; so tired that she could have easily fallen asleep where she had sat, but her mind had forced her not to, no matter how much her body longed for rest. She had been sat in the same position for hours now, and her lower body was starting to feel numb from the lack of movement, causing a ripple of pins and needles on her thighs when she did shift her the chair. Still, the blatent uncomfort was keeping her awake, and so she couldn't bring herself to move. She knew that, once she had, her mind would wander onto something else, and with a situation this bad on her mind, she couldn't afford that kind of distraction.

Her eyes were fixed firmly on the other side of the room. It was a child's bedroom that she sat in, not her own, where she should have been at such a late hour. The walls were a pale yellow colour, blending with the pine furniture and matching the soft carpet, bedsheets and curtains. The small bed was across the room from her, tucked up against the corner and spread out along the side of the wall. However, it wasn't the small embroidered ducks on the duvet spread that held her gaze, as they had done when she had first brought them three years ago, but rather, the small child that lay curled up beneath it.

Her mind was racing as she did nothing more than stare; her mind compensating for the lack of life shown in her limbs. Although, whilst she knew that nothing was going to come of the staring, and that simply looking wasn't going to present her with an answer, she didn't know what else she could do. The scenarios playing inside of her head mixed with the exhaustion was making it hard to seperate her maternal worries from real life, yet after that afternoon, she wasn't sure whether she was a firm believer in reality anymore. Whenever she thought of a 'what if', a way to work around it and assure herself that her mind was playing tricks, she was always compromised with the classic though of; why hadn't she been prepared for this? Why had she never realised that this could have been a possibility before?

The child in the bed, a small girl with an adorable smile and eyes that shined like diamonds, was giving her more to think about now than she had done before she was born. Jessica hadn't been planned, true enough, and that was shown most clearly by the fact that Hallie wasn't sure for certain who the father was. It wasn't that she had slept around, but rather the fact that Jessica's conception had occured in a short space of time in between her breaking up with one boyfriend, sleeping with someone to get over him, and then getting together with someone else for a short while. However, she knew all three men well, so it had been easier to shut them all out, rather than going ahead with the complications of paternity tests. She'd not even been sure, at that time, whether she could go through with having a baby, let alone complicating the lives of three men, so she had found it easier to take a step back from them all.

It wasn't until that afternoon that she'd ever had a problem with that. When Jessica was born, Hallie had her sister at her side, and her beloved elder sister Cassie had helped her to learn how to raise her children, having raised three of her own already. Hallie worked part time, and whilst she was working Jessica stayed with Cassie. She never needed anyone else, and she never wanted them either.

Now, she was afraid, and it scared her even more to know what it wasn't the situation she was afraid of. It was her daughter.

She was afraid of her own daughter.

That was the reason she didn't want to move, and the reason why she needed her mind focused on a singular topic, despite the exhaustion causing her eyelids to droop for longer and longer each time she blinked. She was afraid of her daughter, and she couldn't go to sleep until she knew what she was going to do about that.

The scene before her was one that she wasn't used to; or at least, she wasn't used to witnessing it for so long. The last time she had sat and watched Jessica sleeping this intently was after she was born, when they were still in the hospital together. However, this time, she wasn't standing on the other side of the glass, looking down at her in the nursery amongst all the other babies lined up in display to the visitors. No, this time she was simple otn the other side of the room, seperated by four feet of carpet with a few abandoned toys scattered atop it, and it was only her fear that kept her on the other side from her daughter.

What kind of mother is afraid to go near their child?

Jessica was always runnning around. Hallie had never remembered having this much energy when she was a child, and Cassie had assured her that all children were hyperactive from time to time. Jessica was never still; always laughing, jumping, buzzing around full of energy, and, most of the time, driving Hallie crazy with worry. She hadn't quite developed a sense of fear yet, and was always trying things that Hallie was sure that three year olds weren't supposed to do. But now, she was still. She wasn't running around, because she was lying down. She wasn't jumping, because she wasn't moving, save for the gradual rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. She wasn't laughing, because she wasn't awake. She wasn't buzzing around, full of energy, because she'd left all of her energy at the park that afternoon, and now she was as exhausted as Hallie felt.

As much as a worn-out child, in bed earlier than usual, and sleeping heavily is probably every parent's dream after a long day, there would be none more relieved than Hallie at this moment in time.

She'd been through a phase, when Jessica had first learnt to walk, when she'd become extremely protective, even though she was right to be so considering that Jessica seemed to be a walking accident waiting to happen. She hated Jessica running around the house, because she was afraid that she'd trip over something, or run into something, and hurt herself. She never liked to see her jumping in the beds, because they didn't have the money for a new one if she'd break it, and she'd already broken three since she was old enough to have a bed by jumping on them; and that was ignoring the fact that she hated the thought of her jumping as high as she did (which was always impressively high for the springs in the second hand beds), and falling off and hurting herself.

A hand on her shoulder startled her back into the here and now, and, much to her immediate distate, took her away from her thoughts. However, once she shook herself, and looked back at Jessica once more, she was glad to have those thoughts out of her mind. A mother shouldn't be thinking that about her child. A mother shouldn't be scared of her child. She looked up, following the hand on her shoulder up to the face looking down at her with the soft, reassuring smile that she had always lived under.

"How are you doing?" Cassie asked her in a gentle voice, just above a whisper as not to wake the sleeping child.

Hallie nodded firmly. "I'm fine." She said, her voice equally as low as her sister's, as her eyes fell back onto the tiny lump beneath the yellow blankets that was her daughter.

Cassie nodded alongside of her, but her was much weaker as she saw directly through her sister's facade. "You're goign to wake her up if you stay here any longer." She pointed out, not bothering prying into her sister's feelings because she knew that Hallie wouldn't tell her anything.

She simply shrugged. "I'm not making any noise. I won't wake her." She told her sister. Or at least, she hadn't been making any noise, until she'd started speaking with Cassie's appearance. However, she still wasn't able to take her eyes off her Jessica in her bed. "I'm a bad mother." She muttered, shaking her head.

Cassie gently squeezed the hand that remained on her shoulder. "No, you're not." She said with a determination that her younger sister longed to share.

Hallie, however, shook her head more quickly. "If you knew what was going on inside of my head, you wouldn't be saying that, Cass..." She sighed, bringing her face into her hands and rubbing it wearily. "I should have expected this to happen-"

"You couldn't have known, Hal." Cassie pointed out.

"I should have been prepared."

"How?" Cassie asked her, but she continued when she got no answer. "You knever knew for sure that she was his."

"I think it's pretty clear now, though." Hallie half laughed.

Cassie smiled softly. "It won't happen again." She tried to assure her.

"Won't it?"

"It was probably just a fluke, just a jump in her system or something-"

"You don't believe that." Hallie told her, and Cassie fell silent. It was, after all, just a simple hope that it wouldn't happen again. "You know as well as I do that this wasn't some kind of fluke."

"Everything's going to work out, you'll see." She said, trying to sound optimistic, but with each passing second, she was losing the faith that she was holding onto for the both of them. This wasn't a one off, this was only the start of something bigger. But still, she needed to try. "She's fine, and everything will be fine."

Hallie shook her head again. "I don't think 'fine' is a very good word to use." She said. "'Disasterous' is probably a better one."

"She's a kid, Hal, things happen." Cassie pointed out.

"Not these sort of things."

"She's always been running around with the boys, getting scrapes and bruises..." She broke off, sighing. "I guess she does get that from her father, after all." She realised, casting her memory back to what she remembered of the young man.

"Yeah, and this wasn't just something she got from running around with the boys either." Hallie pointed out. "This is something she got from her father, and this is all his fault."

"This is nobody's fault, Hal-"

"Don't take his side, Cass. You're my sister, not his."

Hallie's sudden warning tone caused Cass to step back from her, releasing her hand from her sisters shoulder and letting it fall to her side. "She's going to be fine." She murmered again, more to herself than anything else, but her voice was listened to, and ignored, regardless.

"Don't tell me she's going to be fine." Hallie said, finally looking up from Jessica's sleeping form. "She's not fine. I'm not fine. Nothing about this situation is fine-"

"Let's go into the kitchen." Cassie interrupted, casting a wary gaze at her neice to check that her mothers rising voice hadn't caused her to wake. "You don't want to wake her up."

Cassie led her through to the kitchen, even though she knew the way easily herself. She was forever standing at the counter, making Jessica and her cousins sandwiches for lunch or drinks of juice. It was easily the room she spent the most time in, and definately the most time thinking in, save for that evening. Cassie leaned with her back against the counter, her arms holding herself up against it as Hallie sat down at the small wooden table, facing up at her sister.

"So." Cassie said simply, her voice at it's usual level now. "What happens now?"

Hallie shurgged. "I can't deal with it." She said.

"Hal-"

"She's all messed up, and I can't deal with this."

Cassie bit her lip, shaking her head. "Jess is a lot of things." She told her. "She's happy, she's intelligent, she's funny...but she is certainly not messed up." She said.

Hallie looked up at Cassie. "Are you telling me that regular three year olds do this?" She asked sarcastically.

Cassie ignored the use of the word 'regular'. "This is not your fault."

"Oh, I know it's not my fault." She said confidently. "It's his. This is all his fault. My daughter would be normal if it wasn't for him."

"She is normal--"

"She burst into flames and didn't get hurt. How is that normal?" Cassie couldn't answer her on that one. It wasn't normal, and they knew it. Although, considering who this meant her father was, it was probably very normal, and definately something that they should have been prepared for surfacing, even if there was nothing they could do about it. "Yeah, that's what I thought." Hallie finished.

"So, what are you going to do?" Cassie challenged.

However, this was one question that Hallie no longer needed to think about. She already knew. She'd known for a few hours now, ever since she had tucked Jessica into bed and said her goodnights before settling in the chair across from the room. It had been an easy decision, but it was the afterthought that had left her sat across the room for hours, tugging at her conscience. She knew what she had to do, and she knew how hard it was, but it was the only logical decision.

"He can have her." She said simply.

Cassie looked at her, and the look on her face told her that she couldn't have said anything more horrifying to her. "Are you saying-?"

"I can't handle this, Cass. He lives with it everyday, and I'm pretty sure it's about time that he's the responsible one here." Hallie justified.

"And you think this is a responsible decision?" Cassie protested, glad that she no longer needed to keep her voice down.

"It's what's best for her."

"It's what's best for you!" She corrected, and was met with a silence. She shook her head. "You can't do this." She said quietly.

"Yeah, I can." Hallie said calmly. "I can, and I will."

Cassie looked at her for the longest time, biting her lip as she looked down at the woman she was now shamed to call her sister. Her eyes wandered, falling upon the refridgerator, where some plastic fridge magnets held up a childish crayon drawing of 'me and mommy - by Jessica-Skye', dated on May 4th of that year. Three days ago.

"So, that's it?" She asked quietly.

"That's it." Hallie confirmed.

"You're just going to give your daughter away?"

Hallie shook her head, and Cassie felt hopeful that she had misunderstood the whole conversation, and hoping that she was about to be told that Hallie wasn't giving her daughter away, but instead, her sister followed her gaze to the drawing she was staring at, and she had to look away from it quickly.

"That's not my daughter anymore." She said calmly.


	2. I Can Take A Little Heat

Chapter One:

Johnny Storm was laid on on the balcony of the Baxter building, soaking up the rays of the sun that streamed down on him. He'd never been a fan of balconies or verandas until their first summer as the Fantastic Four had revealed to him how wonderful it felt to lie out on the miniature precipice of the building, and now, four years after they had become the professional superhero team, he had made sunbathing into more of a hobby than his sister had done as a teenager. As a child, he'd never really been a fan of sitting still in the sun like she had, especially on a rare visit to the ocean. True, Sue had always liked the trips to the seaside, and she'd play and swim in the water like he had done, but most of the tme, she would lie out on the sand and, as he saw it, be boring. Instead, he'd be off climbing rocks, and as he got older, he started trying surfing, waterskiing and other water sports that had left Sue fretting as much as his parents, and later just his father, had done.

For the moment, none of the rest of the group were in, which was rare. They all still resided in Reed's part of the Baxter, as once the money had started raking in from the government, they had managed to pay off, between them, the entire mortgage on the part that Reed owned, making it the official residence of the Fantastic Four. Who'd have thought, Government Funded Superheroes? However, will all of them living there, and with Ben's girlfriend Alicia having moved in there as well, Johnny had found himself surprised that he'd been presented with the afternoon to himself.

He had to admit though, now that no one was around, that he'd rather have gone out with Sue and Reed. They were off to the hospital that afternoon for another check on the baby, and this time, unlike the time before, in which all of them had gone and Johnny had left very disappointed and uninformed, they were finding out whether they were having a boy or a girl. Johnny had done all but pleaded with them that morning to go with them, but they insisted that they wanted to go alone. After all, it was their first child together, and they wanted to be the first to know. They also wanted to be the ones to tell people what they were expecting, and they knew that if Johnny knew, half the city would know within ten minutes; but they didn't tell him that part.

Ben and Alicia, however, had gone on a secret outing that Ben had been planning for a few weeks now. He'd never told anyone except Reed and Sue where he was taking her, and Johnny had pestered him to no end once he had realised that he and Alicia were the only ones that didn't know. He didn't understand at first what Alicia saw in Ben, and it was only when he had voiced this to Sue after a party that she had told him how incredibly unsensitive he was being to the fact that Alicia was blind. He had to admit, he hadn't known until then, and he hadn't made the same mistake again. After all, he might be an ass most of the time, but there were lines that shouldn't be crossed and that was one of them.

Yet, as much as he liked the peace and quiet, he didn't like being on his own. It gave him too much time to think, and he got bored easily without someone to annoy, mainly Ben, who stil gave him the entertainment he needed from his pranks. Annoying Reed had become something of a dead sport when his brother-in-law had adopted the 'if we ignore it, he'll stop' approach to his mischief. It had annoyed Johnny more when he realised that Reed's approach had been right. Reed tried to tell Ben this as much as possible, but Johnny realised after a while that Ben didn't have Sue backing him up as much as Reed did, so he could always take it a step further without being spoken to afterwards like a child.

So, he'd sat out in the sun all afternoon, feeling abandoned and alone, and most importantly, bored. Perhaps it was the fact that his usual body temperature was over two hundred degrees which brought on the sudden contempt to sit in the sun. Feeling the comforting head was more enjoyable to him than getting a tan, even though he knew that it was great for attracting the ladies this time of year. So, he'd found his favourite chair, which was always rooted in position to catch the best rays before the sun disappeared to the other side of the Baxter, gotten his sunglasses from his room, and made himself comfortable with an afternoon cocktail from the pathetic collection of alcohol in the kitchen. It wasn't good when the person who did the food shopping was pregnant, and decided to stop drinking alcohol, but he wasn't about to risk going shopping just yet.

He stayed that way well into the afternoon, never rising from the perfect spot he had accomplished, and time passed quickly when he had little on his mind, so he had suspected that when two hours had mysteriously passed by in what felt like three minutes, that he must have fallen asleep for a while. Yet, as oblivious as he was to the sound of the congestion on the streets below him, he was all to aware of the lack of heat hitting his chest. Someone was standing in front of him, and so he clearly wasn't alone in the apartment anymore.

"You're in my light." He said simply, without opening his eyes behind his sunglasses to see who it was. "Move."

"Did you put anything on to stop you burning?"

He laughed lightly at the voice, which, although from most would have been concerned, was instead scolding. It was Sue. He didn't have to open his eyes to know that. Despite the obvious differences between her voice, and those of Reed and Ben, he knew just from what was said that it was his elder sister coming out to practice being maternal around him. She'd been doing it for years.

"I'm the Human Torch, Sue." He pointed out, still with his eyes closed beneath the dark shades. "I burn for a living."

"There's nothing to say that the Human Torch can't get skin cancer." She muttered to him, causing him to laugh again.

"I can take a little heat." He told her confidently. After all, he knew that he could take a lot of heat. "Although..." He added, gesturing blindly to the empty glass beside him. "I could do with a top up."

Sue put her hands on her hips, looking down at her brother in disbelief. "Do I look like you're mother?" She asked him daringly.

He finally opened his eyes, lifting his shades and settling them atop his head as he looked up at his sister. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Hands on hips. Giving him a disappointed 'oh no you didn't' look. "Yeah, actually." He nodded slowly. "You look a lot like Mom."

Sue shook her head at him, smiling as she did so before turning on her heel and disappearing into the kitchen, which the balcony lead off of Laughing at himself, and generally pleased that, once again, her comeback had fired on her, he stood up, following her into the kitchen and grabbing the t-shirt he had abandoned on the back of his chair earlier. He slipped it over his head when he followed her back into the apartment, catching sight of himself in the mirror as he did, and he waited to admire his tan for a moment.

----------------------

Reed had thought a long time ago that, as a scientist, nothing could surprise him. Being exposed to a cosmic storm which had left him and his friends with what could only be described now as superpowers had backed this up. Nothing surprised him anymore. And he hadn't been surprised either, at the hospital, when the doctors had told him and Sue that all the precautions they were taking with no alcohol and eating more nutrients than usual were working, and that their baby was very healthy. He hadn't been surprised, but he'd been thankful for it.

They'd been in for a little over an hour, lazing around in the bedroom when they'd returned. The heat that day was almost unbearable, especially for the 5th of May. He'd expect weather like this in the middle of July or early August, but instead they were having a heatwave in May. He hadn't been overly surprised at that either, what with all the global warming threats still flying around from environmentalists. So, rather that going out shopping as they had planned to afterwards, they had come home and lay on the bed together, the windows open as far as they would go so that the breeze would fly over them and cool them down. After all, Sue was five and a half months pregnant now, and she wasn't a big fan of the heat. She was already cursing the fact that she'd have to spend her biggest and last months of the pregnancy in the hottest months of the summer. But despite that, they were both thrilled at the idea of their child joining them soon.

Reed made his way through to the kitchen, where he knew Sue was making a drink. He heard her talking to Johnny out on the balcony, and shook his head, wondering what the siblings were bickering about this time. He was about to join them, when the doorbell attracted his attention.

He crossed through the living room to where they had built in front door after you stepped off the elevator. Too many times when they had first established themselves as a team, people had slipped past security and managed to get into the apartment, usually startling someone in the kitchen where they would drop whatever they were holding, leading to a lot of culinary replacements with their first year of living together.

When he opened the door, he was faced with a young girl, in her early twenties. She had pale hair, almost white-blonde but not dyed that way. Her skin was almost as pale as her cheeks, and when she turned at the sound of the door being opened, he saw her bright blue eyes looking up at him. He also saw the small toddler she was carrying on her hip. Or, at least, she saw the back of the sleeping child, and a lot of light brown curly hair.

He had to say, he was surprised, even though he tried to tell himself that he wasn't.

"Can I help you?" He asked her, not recognising her as someone who had called round before, and definately not knowing someone with a toddler.

"I'm looking for Johnny Storm." The woman said, her tone saying his name with the annoyed tone that many women rang up for Johnny with. Although, even though some of these had come by to the apartment looking for him as well, none of them had come with two bags at their side and a toddler on their hip. Reed looked at her, and then more suspiciously at the child, and the woman caught this look. "I'm just...going out of town." She explained. "I wanted to say goodbye to him before I left."

It explained the bags at her side, and he nodded, stepping back and allowing her in. "Sure, come on in." He said, going to help her with her bags, but she effortlessly reached down and grasped them in the same hand, still clutching the sleeping toddler against her as well.

"Thanks." She said, as she came in and let Reed shut the door behind her.

"I'll go get him, he's out on the balcony." He explained as he lead the young woman through to the living room. She put the sleeping toddler down in an unusually large armchair, one that they had specially reinforced for Ben's size, and placed the bags at her side. She then crossed back over the room and stood facing in the direction that Reed was disappearing into. "Who shall I tell him is-"

"Tell him it's Hallie." She said simply. "He'll know who it is."

------------------------

"So, when did you get back?" Johnny asked, when he had finished admiring his reflection and joined his sister in the kitchen.

"About an hour ago." She told him.

"Thanks for coming to say 'hi'." He smirked sarcastically.

"You were being so quiet out there. I didn't think you were in."

He raised his eyebrows at her suggestion. "You know, I don't always destroy something every time you leave me alone." He told her.

She raised her eyebrows in the same way. "Don't you?"

He sighed. "Okay, the toaster was an accident--"

"That's our third toaster in a fortnight, Johnny." She told him. Wow, he thoguht, she even sounded like their mother. No wonder the previous comeback had fired on her.

"And?" He asked, not entirely seeing the point. "Anyway, we've got more important things to talk about." He said, gesturing down at her ever-growing stomach, which wasn't huge at the moment, but definately large enough to tell the world that she was expected.

She grinned down at her stomach in the maternal way that sometimes made him feel like gagging, particularly when her and Reed were doing it at the same time, and then smiled up at her brother. "I thought we might." She mused simply, remembering the small tantrum Johnny had had when he found out that he wasn't going to the hospital with them that afternoon.

"So, spill!" He urged her. "Is my nephew a nephew or a niece?"

Convinced that the baby was a boy, Johnny had insistantly taken to calling Sue's baby his nephew, even though there was an equally high possibility that it could be a girl. However, knowing Johnny, that wouldn't stop him from calling the baby his nephew. But still, Sue had had many a talk with him trying to explain the possibility that she could be having a girl. None of them had worked, though.

"You know," She reminded him. "If it is a girl, you're going to have to stop calling them your nephew."

However, the small smirk on her lips that wasn't there when she usually told him that gave everything away and he looked at her hopefully. "It's a boy, isn't it?" He realised.

She grinned at him, nodding. "Yes, it's a boy." She revealed.

Johnny jumped across the room, before embracing his sister kindly. However, when he realised that he was, indeed, hugging his sister, he stepped back. "Alright!" He exclaimed, and then added with a gently smile. "Congratulations, sis."

She laughed at his reaction. "Would you have hated a niece that much?" She asked him, even though she was smiling.

"No." He assured her. "But boys are so much easier to handle than girls."

"How?" She questioned.

"Boys like video games and water guns and wrestling and football..." Johnny said, knowing that the list was ending, and holding back from adding the word 'fire' to his list and earning a slap from his sister. "Girls like dolls and dancing and dolls--"

"You said dolls twice." Sue pointed out to him.

Johnny looked at her warily. "Do you not remember how many dolls you had?"

Sue laughed. "Okay, you've got me there."

"The point is," Johnny continued. "That there's another boy to outnumber you in this place."

She shook her head, smiling devlishly. "One day, there will be many girls in this house." She looked up as she saw her husband entering the room. "Reed." She smiled, but frowned gently at the confused and wary expression on his face.

"What's up, Doc?" Johnny asked, the same greeting he always had for his brother-in-law.

Reed jabbed his thumb towards the living room, looking at Johnny. "There's someone here to see you." He said.

Johnny frowned as well, looking at his watch for a moment. "I'm not expecting anyone--"

"She said to tell you that it's Hallie, and that you'll know who she is." Reed shrugged.

"Hallie?" Johnny asked, perking up again excitedly, as he had done when Sue told him that his nephew was, in fact, a nephew. "Hallie's here?"

"Wait a sec." Sue said. "Hallie Morgan?"

"You know her?" Reed asked, coming further into the room.

Sue nodded, smiling at Johnny as a strong string of memories came back to her. "Know her? She practically lived at our house. She was Johnny's best friend and his childhood sweetheart." She teased him, seeing the beginnings of a faint blush on her brothers cheek. "Whatever happened to you two?"

Johnny shrugged. "No idea. I saw her once after we got these powers, and then after that, she just broke off completely from me. No idea why." Of course, he did really have every idea why. He knew that he was simply a rebound guy to get over her long-term boyfriend breaking up with her, and it was probably her shame for letting that happen that she had avoided him for the past four years.

"I uh...I think she might have brought the reason with her." Reed explained carefully, his mind still putting two and two together from what he had seen when he opened the door.

Johnny frowned, and left the kitchen to go into the living room. Sue went to follow, looking equally confused, but Reed grabbed her arm gently and pulled her back to him, putting his arms around her.

"Trust me." He told her. "You don't wanna go in there."

"Why not?" Sue asked.

Reed tilted his head to either side, debating his wording, and then settled simply on: "Hallie's not exactly...alone."


	3. You Heard Me

**_First of all, thank you for all the reviews! I was worried about not getting Johnny and the others in character, especially seeing as it's centred around Johnny. I'm also glad that you all seem to hate Hallie. Fantastic. She's designed to be hated, and trust me, it's going to get a lot worse. But don't worry - bad people always get what's coming to them in my story, and Hallie's going to reap what she sows, as it were. I hope you all start to fall in love with Jessica as well, even if she's not in it so much this chapter._**

**_Sam_**

**_xxxxxxx_**

Chapter Three:

"Hallie Morgan...of all the apartments in the world..."

Hallie looked up at the sound of the voice she had once heard every day of the year. Her teenage years were filled with the world of Johnny Storm and the crazy things they had got up to together, but that had changed when she had gotten together with Leo, the man she had been with for two years. Johnny had been heartbroken when, during a short time when he wasn't dating Hallie, she had gotten together with a guy he had considered himself to have a teenage vendetta with.

He'd recognised her straight away when he walked into the room, even though he hadn't seen her for going on four years. She looked different, fairly enough, as four years will change the appearance of a young woman, but she was still the same Hallie he'd once chased around the garden through a water sprinkler in their bathing suits. She was still attractive, still beautiful, and when she looked at him, it still gave him the feeling inside that he hadn't had with any other girls. Then again, Hallie was the only one that he'd shared a whole lifetime of memories with that lasted longer than names and simple facts over a drink.

Her fair hair, which had always been long and hanging down her back, was shorter now, trimmed and layered at where it was kept at just passed her shoulders. Her face was the same, and so were her eyes, but then again, perhaps that was because the last time they had been together, she looked as angry as she threw him out on the doorstep, and there was a similiar blazing expression in her eyes now, no matter how calm her face appeared to be.

"Hi, Johnny." She said, somewhat stiffly as he walked into the room, with arms exaguratedly held open for her. He walked right past the chair where Jessica was sleeping, but with his back to the chair and the direction he had entred from, she had known that he wouldn't see her there straight away, and she was glad for that.

"How are you?" He asked, still smiling broadly. Even if things hadn't been perfect the last time they had seen each other, they'd spent the better part of their fifteen childhood years together, and nothing was going to change that.

"Fine." She said, still stiff and detatched. "I'd ask how you are, but I hear about most of your personal life on the news now."

At this point, he had been standing right before her. His opened arms fell to his side when she made her remark, keeping her arms folded in a defensive position over her chest, and making no move to return his friendly gesture. He was no stranger to women acting like this, after all, he was something of a ladykiller and being the Human Torch hadn't changed that, but this was Hallie, and she was, and always had been, different.

He tried to cover up his surprise at how cold she was being towards him, and shoved his hands into his pockets. "It's tough being in the spotlight." He said simply, shrugging as he did so.

"You know you love it." She said, with a hint of a smirk that resurfaced the old Hallie that he knew so well. In fact, he had a fond memory of her smirking at him like that when she took the great pleasure of saying 'I told you so' when he'd break a bone doing something ridiculous in the driveway with his skateboard.

However, the moment was over, and as quick as their smiles had met, there was no eye contact between them. Hallie kept her eyes trained on a point over his shoulder, anywhere to prevent her from looking straight at him. Even though she hadn't returned his hug, there was still a childish hope in his eyes.

Despite the knockbacks so far, Johnny couldn't control himself. "God, it's so good to see you!" He exclaimed, bounding closer towarsd her. "Do you want something to drink? Eat?" He offered.

She shook her head politely. "I can't stay long." She told him, watching his confusion set in. "I'm leaving soon."

"Where?" He asked, his face falling at the idea of her leaving after she had only just walked back into his life.

"I'm just...going somewhere else." She explained.

He nodded, taking this as a viable response. It sounded like Hallie. She'd always said that she wanted to travel, and when he'd ask where, she'd say 'somewhere else'. She'd always wanted to just get away, but never had the money to. He was glad that she was finally living her dream, even though he was sad to see her go. He understood that her turning up so suddenly and, clearly, leaving so suddenly meant that they weren't going to fulfil the childhood dream and do this trip together.

"When?" He asked quietly, his mood having disappeared all together within five seconds.

"Tonight." She told him.

At her words, Johnny's head looked over to the clock that hung to the right of the television that he had mounted onto the wall last month. It was already five-pm. "_Why_?" He asked, knowing that he sounded like a child whining. "I mean, can't you stay one more night, so we can catch up?" He requested.

She shook her head. "No, I can't." She said simply.

Johnny looked away, scuffing his toes into the carpet beneath him as if he were being scolded before he returned his glance to her, no longer surprised that she was looking everywhere else but him. "So, why are you here?" He asked her, now sounding as cold as she did. "Why now?"

"Well, it's not because I feel guilty for the past four years." She told him. Alright, fair enough, she had ignored him for four years, and kept Jessica under complete wraps under fear of him ever finding out, but he hadn't exactly gone to great lengths to reconcile with her either.

He guessed that she needed some kind of help before she went. She had a habit of doing that after the silent treatment. It had been like that when they'd first had a silent phase when she had started dating Leo, and when they had a fight and she needed somewhere to stay for the night, she had turned up on his doorstep and he, being a softie when it came to helping her, had given in, let her make herself at home, and therefore ending the silent treatment.

The only time other than that in which he could clearly remember her needing his help was when they were still in college together. Her siser, Cassie, had called him round, needing his help with coaxing Hallie out of her room after she had broken up with a short-term boyfriend the night before. He had been reluctant at first, seeing as many a night she had brushed off a night out with him to spend time with the guy whose name he never had been able to remember, but he had given in, and gone round to help her. Coaxing her had turned into bribery, with endless chocolates and ice creams offered to her, and eventually, Johnny had taken over the reigns and the bribery had turned to blackmail, with him threatening to show pictures to the college of her running around his garden naked as a kid if she didn't open the door.

Needless to say, she had opened the door before he had finished speaking.

He shrugged this off. "How long are you leaving for?" He asked. Hallie's eyes flickered to his for a moment, and then disappeared off to beyond his shoulder again. He nodded slowly, knowing what this silence meant. "You're not coming back, are you?" He realised quietly, trying not to get broken-hearted about it, but knowing that this could be the last time he saw her was beating him up inside.

"Just so you know," She revealed. "I didn't know until yesterday."

"What, that you were leaving?"

"No." She shook her head. "I ... I made a mistake, Johnny." She whispered. "I guess on some level, I always knew, but it was never _certain_ until yesterday." She rambled, aware of how quickly she was speaking.

"Whoa, whoa, _whoa_." He stepped in, leaning closer and putting his hands on her shoulders to try and calm her. She was immediately aware of a tremendous warmth that radiated from his hands, more so than she remembered but for one night, and she remembered this feeling from yesterday when she had picked Jessica up and taken her to the hospital. "Calm down." He said softly.

"Things weren't supposed to be this way, Johnny." She told him.

He frowned, looking down at her, more confused than ever. "Hallie, what's going on?" He asked her.

"Things change." She said, after being silent for a moment. This had seemed like a simple idea the night before, but it was harder now to put it into to words than she had imagined. "Sometimes, things change, even if we don't want them to, and when they do change, we can't always cope with that."

Still, he was frowning at her, his confusion growing more, if anything, wondering when his once carefree best friend had become so mature and deep. She was speaking to him in the same motherly tone that Sue would try to explain something serious to him. "What happened?" He asked her again. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"

She shrugged underneath his hold, causing his hands to fall back to his sides. "You could say that."

"What happened?" He repeated, but still, she didn't answer him. He let out a heavy sigh, and brought his hands up to his forehead, kneading the skin there with a comforting force. "It's been _four years_, Hallie." He told her, lifting his head again. "Four years. No phonecall after what happened, no bumping into each other, you changed your number, you moved house...and now, you turn up on my doorstep and say that you're leaving, and you're in trouble?" He said, processing everything aloud. "Why? What's going on?" Still, though, she was silent, and the silence between them which, a long time ago would have been one of content, was now awkward, and steadily getting on his nerves.

Suddenly, she found all the words that she had never said were choked up in her throat, and against her better judgement, they started spilling out before she could think about what she was saying first.

"I never knew that it was you until yesterday." She begun. "I mean, we weren't exclusive, it was a one-night thing after Leo, and it could have been anyone, but you were there and it was you...and then there was Leo as well, and Matt after you, and just...I didn't make a point of pinning it on one guy. So I decided to do everything myself."

He looked at her curiously. "What did you do?" He asked her.

"Cassie helped me when it got hard." She revealed, ignoring his question because she was just taking the long way around to answer it. "But it wasn't as hard as I thought. Not all the time. I managed. We always got by. I never needed anyone else. And then yesterday..." She shook her head. "...something happens which meant it could only ever have been you."

He shook his head softly, unable to make sense of what she was saying. "Hallie, what are you talking about?"

"Her." Hallie said simply, pointing her arm behind him to where her gaze had been centred whenever she wasn't looking at him.

Johnny frowned harder, but didn't look in that direction. "Hallie-"

"Her name's Jessica." At this, Johnny turned around, and his eyes fell onto the little girl sleeping in the chair. Curled up in a ball, and facing out towards them, she looked like a sleeping angel, only with brown hair instead of the pale hair that most people thought of when it came to angels. "Jessica-Skye." She continued. "She's three years, one month, and six days old."

Johnny rounded back on Hallie. "Who's kid is that?" He asked her.

"Weren't you listening to a word I just said?" She asked him tiredly.

"Why didn't you tell me that you had a kid, Hal?" He asked her, wondering if this had been the reason she had cut off from him.

She folded her arms back over her chest. "As of yesterday afternoon, she's officially _your_ kid as well." She pointed out.

Johnny's eyes widened, and for a moment, he realised that, yes, it was completely possible to choke on nothing more than air. He found his chest constricting, and breathing became an unfamiliar action to him as he looked helplessly between Hallie and the sleeping girl.

"...Excuse me?" He spluttered out after a long silence filled with him trying to form words, and finding nothing more than that in his vocabulary.

"Jessica's your daughter, Johnny." Hallie said simply.

"Sh-she-she can't be!" He coughed out desperately.

Hallie groaned inwardly and raised her eyebrows at him daringly. "Do you know any other guys capable of passing on a gene which allows you to catch on fire?" She asked him. "Because she _definately_ doesn't get that from _me_."

Concerned, and slightly curious, Johnny looked back at the unmarked child and then back to Hallie. "That kid set herself on fire?" He asked.

"_Jessica_." She corrected him. "And yes, she did set herself on fire."

His eyes widened as he shook his head. "Hallie, you can't be serious."

"Yesterday afternoon, she started yelling at me, because I needed to go to the store, and she wanted to stay and play." Hallie exclaimed. "She got so worked up that one of her arms just..._ignited_."

"Jesus Christ." Johnny swore, running his hands over his face.

"I went to put it out, and I was terrified that she was hurt, but then the rest of her body went up in flames too. I wrapped her up, and the fire went out, but when I checked, there wasn't a mark on her body. Not a single mark, even though her clothes had burned right through. She never even screamed, not once. I took her to the hospital, just in case, but they didn't believe me, Johnny." Hallie told him, reliving the experience in her mind which had brought her to stand before him that afternoon.

"There has to be some other explanation." Johnny tried to reason. "I mean...maybe this is a one-off-freaky-thing?" He suggested.

Hallie shifted her weight onto her other foot and stared him down. "Johnny, this morning she clapped her hands, and she set her cereal on fire. _Her cereal_."

Johnny closed his eyes, wishing this whole situation to end. Maybe he was imagining things. Maybe he was still sleeping out on the balcony. Yes, that was right, because then it would make sense that Sue and Reed were having a son because he wanted them to have a boy. If he was dreaming, he would have gotten what he wanted, but at this point it had turned into a nightmare. Perhaps he was spending too much time in the sun, or maybe Ben was right, and setting himself on fire all the time was starting to fry his brain.

"I can't be her father." He said, more to himself than Hallie, but she contradicted him anyway.

"The flame issues says otherwise."

"I can't." He repeated desperately. "I ... I know this sounds selfish, but I am not the daddy type, Hal. _I can't be this kid's father_!"

Instead of reassuring him, like he thought she might do, she took a step backwards, away from him and the sleeping child that was theirs. "Yeah, well, you don't have much of a choice." She told him quietly. "Because I can't be her mother anymore."

Now, this got his attention more than anything else. "_What_?" He asked her.

"You heard me." She said simply.

His eyes narrowed at her. "No, I'm not quite sure I did."

"I can't deal with this." She told him, flailing her arms as she took another step back - towarsd the door. "Single parent? No big deal. But a child that regularly _sets herself on fire_? No way, Johnny." She said, acutally laughing at the idea. "I can't do that. I can't raise her if she's like that."

"If she's like what?" Johnny asked defensively, suddenly aware that she was abandoning her child because she had inherited the genes from him that had been affected by the cosmic storm four years ago.

"Like..._that_!" She said, gesturing wildly at Jessica, who was still sleeping calmly. "That is not my daughter, Johnny. Not anymore."

He frowned at her. "You're going to abandon your daughter because she does what I do twenty times a day?" He accused her. "Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?"

She shook her head, calming down. "It was never meant to be this way." She told him quietly.

"What way?"

"She was meant to be _normal_." She said, stressing the word which shot straight to Johnny's defences.

"Normal? Hallie, what are you talking about?" He asked her desperately. "This isn't like you-"

"-And neither is she!" She said loudly, still pointing at the sleeping child. "I don't know why I didn't know she was yours before. She looks like _you_, she acts like _you_, she does everything stupid and reckless like _you_, and she sets herself on fire like some kind of _freak_ like you do!"

Despite her desperation steaming up into a big explosion, Johnny did the opposite and calmed down in more of a shock. He looked at the woman before him who had had shared his childhood with. In fact, if he hadn't called her his childhood sweetheart, he'd have called her his sister. They were too close for friends, but too distant to be lovers. They had that level of balance between them which he thought would always stand the test of time, like it had done before, but now, he had to say, she had finally found an insult to him which had genuinely hurt him.

"I can't believe you just called me a _freak_." He said quietly, looking at her as if some alien force was inhabiting her body.

She simply shook her head, and turned around, approaching the door.

"Whoa, where are you going?" He asked her in a sudden panic.

"I'm leaving, like I told you." She pointed out.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" He asked, pointing behind him.

"Like what?" She asked, shrugging.

"I don't know, like, you're _daughter_?" He called out.

Hallie looked back at the sleeping girl, and found that the sight of her innocent daughter, who, this time yesterday, had become something which she was ashamed to call her own, actually hurt her. She looked at the bags beside the chair and then at Johnny. "Everything she needs is in the bags." She told him.

"Now, hold on a second-"

"She's not my responsibility anymore, Johnny."

"Hallie-"

"That's...that's not the daughter I brought ito the world." She said, suddenly aware of a dampness on her cheeks that she knew to be tears. How long had she been crying? Was it just from looking at Jessica and knowing that it would be the last time she would ever see her?

Johnny looked at her, and she had never seen more desperation on his face. "Hallie, please-" He begged her in a tiny voice.

She bit her lip and looked at him. "Take care of her, Johnny." She said, in a voice which strained underneath the lump in her throat.

"_Please_, don't do this." He pleaded her, his hands raised in a prayed position before his face as he nervously bit the skin around his thumbnails. "I can't do this. _I can't_."

"You have to." She told him. "Because I can't anymore. I won't." She turned and opened the door. "I'll see myself out."

"Hallie-"

The closing of the door told him what he already knew. It was too late. She was already gone.


	4. I Think I'm Gonna Need Some Help

Chapter 3:

Johnny stared at the closed door for what felt like an age, but it couldn't have been longer than a minute. If Hallie was still anything like he knew her to be, she would come back through the door an announce that the whole thing had been a joke. But the door never opened. The knob never turned. Her face never appeared. She really had gone. He continued to stand there regardless, wondering whether he had imagined the whole thing. As long as he didn't turn around and see the sleeping girl, Jessica, still there, he could still pretend that this was all a dream, and that it was all in his imagination.

Then again, his imagination had never been that good.

He kept his eyes closed as he turned around, inhaling deeply as he did. He stood at the different angle, counted to ten to calm down, and then opened his eyes.

The girl was still there, and he'd known in the back of his mind the whole time that she wasn't really going to disappear. Jessica. That was her name, as Hallie had told him only minutes ago. She was still sleeping in the chair that belonged to Ben, specially designed to take his weight. He doubted that the chair even recognised the fragile weight of such a tiny girl upon it, compared to Ben's size. He stepped closer, so that he could see her clearer, but he still kept a few steps away from her so that he wouldn't risk waking up. He wouldn't know what to do if she woke up. He didn't know the first thing about kids. So, silently, he stood there, not knowing what else to do other than to look at this new person.

He remembered Hallie telling him that she had just turned three years old. Last month. Inside, a part of him wanting to punch himself for not being there for any of the three birthdays if this was his daughter. Jessica. It was a nice name, he decided. It wasn't fancy and unique like some he heard today. And it started with a 'J' like his. He suspected that part of Hallie had always suspected, if not wanted, Jessica to be his daughter.

Standing this close, he could see what she meant about looking like him. She had the same light brown hair that he did, although hers was slightly more of a golden colour where the sun had naturally highlighted it. She was obviously a child who enjoyed being outdoors, as she had a healthy summery complexion, complete with a few sunkissed freckles on her cheeks and nose which contrasted greatly to her mothers pale skin. She had the same face shape as him, the same chin, the same nose...the resemblance was too great for him to be anything else than this tiny girls father. She even twitched her nose slightly in her sleep like he was told many times by his father and Sue that he did when he was younger.

"Johnny?"

Sue's voice alerted him to her presence, but he didn't look up from Jessica. Even though he was concerned for her, and wishing nothing else that Hallie would come back and continue with things how they were, he couldn't take his eyes off of her.

"Yeah?" He answered back quietly.

"Where's Hallie?" She asked him, having hoped to at least say 'hello' to the girl that she also considered to be her friend.

Johnny shrugged simply. "She's gone."

"She didn't stay long." Sue observed.

"No." He confirmed. "She came to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?"

"She's leaving."

"Where is she going?" Sue asked.

"Somewhere else." Johnny repeated in a soft tone as he remembered her saying it to him countless times in their youth. He looked down at Jessica, who twitched her nose again in her sleep, and snuggled into the pillow beneath her a little more. "Sue," Johnny croaked out in a helpless tone. "I...I think I'm gonna need some help." He said, swallowing a lump in his throat. Was it because Hallie had left him for good this time, or because he was scared about being a father?

"Why, what's happened?" Sue asked, instantly concerned at the emotional tone in her brother's voice. She stepped out of the kitchen, and further into the living room where he was standing. He was looking intently at something in Ben's chair, but she couldn't see what from where she stood behind it.

"Well, if you stand here with me, you can see the problem." He told her quietly.

Sue frowned, going over to him with Reed also coming into the room, and lingering in the doorway. "Johnny, what---Oh." She said simply, her eyes coming to rest on the sleeping child as she stood in place beside her younger brother.

"That's Jessica." He said simply, not taking his eyes off of the girl still.

"Johnny-"

"Apparently, she's my daughter." Johnny said, and Sue's eyes widened.

"Oh. My. God." She said slowly, as Reed also crossed the room. He'd already seen the child when he let Hallie into the apartment, but he saw her in a new light now that he knew that this was, technically, his neice. "How does she-" Sue started to ask, but backtracked awkwardly. "I mean, I'm not suggesting that--but how does she know that it's yours?" She asked.

Johnny shrugged. "Because, apparently. I'm the only possible father for a girl that can set herself on fire." He explained.

"She set herself on FIRE?" Reed asked rather loudly, shocked at this, but a nudge from Sue reminded him that the child in question was still sleeping, and that his voice was going to wake them up. "How...how is that possible?" He asked, frowning a little.

Johnny shrugged simply. "You tell me."

Sue ran her hand over her forehead for a moment, trying to get to grips with the situation. She was finding it confusing, so she couldn't imagine how her brother felt. "So, she just sprung this on you, and then left?" She askeed.

Johnny nodded, still, never taking his eyes off the child. He was mesmerised, both horrified and curious that this child was his. His. His offspring. His baby. His flesh, blood and, apparently, fire.

"She said that she couldn't cope with her if she was a freak like me." He said, surprised at how protectively bitter his words sounded, and he wondered whether it was just himself he was insulted for, or the child as well. No one had ever called any of the Fantastic Four freaks before, at least, not to their faces. He was sure that someone had, but this was Hallie who had said it. The best friend he'd ever had. The only woman he'd ever convinced himself that he'd felt anything akin to love for. She'd called him a freak, and she'd called the child they'd created a freak, and he wasn't sure for whom he was more insulted.

"I can't believe she abandoned her child." Sue muttered, sounding as if someone had run over her puppy. Mind you, Johnny thought, if Hallie had a mind to abandon this child, then she'd probably have the heart to run over a puppy as well.

"_I _can't believe she called me a freak!" Johnny protested, almost as if he were trying to point out the differing importance of the situation.

"She must have been really desperate." Reed pointed out, putting his arm around Sue's shoulders.

Johnny caught this gesture out of the corner of his eye, but didn't direct his attention to his sister and her husband. Reed had always been slightly insecure in their relationship, forever dispairing that somehow, Sue might decide that she could do better, and that she would leave. However, there was no bigger way that he could be sure that she was staying other than the child she was carrying. His insecurities had vanished then, and Johnny, being Johnny, had wondered where they had gone to.

Clearly, they'd gone to him. He could already feel the questions, the 'what ifs', and the dispair clenching at his insides and threatening to consume him.

After a moment's silence, Sue moved from underneath Reed's arm, and bent over Jessica a little, as much as her growing stomach would allow, scraping back some hair in a mother-ish way to reveal more of her face. "She is a lot like you, Johnny." She said in a soft, yet amused tone. "You can see that from just looking at her."

Johnny let out a short exhale, which sounded like a 'pft' to everyone else. "Yeah, well, I bet I didn't set my cereal on fire when I was her age." He muttered. He was starting to sound a bit like a jealous, spoilt child, Sue realised. She straightened up, standing back beside Reed.

"She's a beautiful girl." Reed admired simply, nodding ever so slightly as he did before casting a look towards Johnny.

It was that moment, when Reed and Sue had undeniably accepted the girl into their home, that Johnny snapped. The shock that had numbed him with Hallie's dramatic exit had worn off, and the panic was starting to consume him. This was reality now. Not a dream. Not a figment of his imagination. Not a hallucination from spending too much time in the sun. Not even his brain being fryed from flaming on too much. He was a father. He had certain responsibilities he had to face now.

He wasn't ready for this, and the reality of that set him into the overdrive of panic.

"What am I going to do?" He somewhat shrieked suddenly, taking a jumped step backwards to distance himself. His hands found themselves holding his head upright as he looked at the girl with a fear in his eyes. "I don't know the first thing about being a father!"

As if to demonstrate this, he found his voice raising considerably, forgetting that loud noises woke sleeping children. Sue looked at her brother sympathetically. "We'll work things out, Johnny." She assured him gently.

"What am I supposed to do with her?" He asked, wildly flinging one of his arms in her direction, as if he were afraid that she were about to explode.

Sue took a step towards him, putting her hands on his forearms to calm him down. "Johnny, relax." She said to him softly.

He looked at her, desperation filling his panicked eyes. "Sue, I can't do this." He whispered loudly to her.

"Yes, you can." She told him, her gentle voice filled with the confidence that he lacked.

Johnny gulped loudly, shaking his head. "What happens when she wakes up?" He asked her. "What happens when she wants to know where Hallie is, and why she's here? I mean, she probably doesn't even know who I am, and what---Oh God, this is terrible!" He said, firmly shutting his eyes. "I'm dreaming." He decided, but then he opened his eyes and looked at his sister. "Tell me I'm dreaming."

She shook her head, nudging his arm with her hand as she tried to shake him from his phase. "You're not dreaming, wake up." She said with determination. "Now, when she wakes up, we'll find out if she knows anything about where Hallie might have gone." She said, taking charge of what everyone else was stepping back from.

"And what now?"

"Until then, I suggest we have a look to see if there's anything important in those bags."

-----

There were two large bags at Jessica's side. Reed stepped in and lifted them when Sue walked towards them. Since the start of her pregnancy, Reed had been adament that they take all sorts of precautions, especially with the cliche lifting and other such things which sometimes drove Sue insane. However, despite how Johnny usually teased them about this, he could see why Reed was being so protective. Sue and Reed had been married six months after they had established their powers, and soon after that they had announced that they were trying for a baby. It had been three years since that announcement that Sue had discovered she was actually pregnant.

He'd always been slightly amazed by that. Not in a strange way, but in a respectful way. Johnny didn't ever think that he'd have the determination to keep trying for anything for three years, let alone baby. Funny how for those three years, it turned out that he'd had one all along. Still though, he was no stranger to seeing his sister coming out of the bathroom and into the kitchen at morning, bleary eyed and internally crushed at another pregnancy test that she threw into the trash. He'd felt bad for her, because all her and Reed wanted was to have a real family together, and they deserved it.

Perhaps Hallie had never told him about the baby because he wasn't as deserving as Reed and Sue were. Perhaps fate really did have more of a hand in his life than he orginally thought, and it was just out to get him. If he would have been a good father, then surely it would have been cosmically arranged for him to be there, or however fate managed things these days. However, if fate was down to this, then he couldn't help feeling like fate had screwed his sister over more than she deserved. After all, having a family and being a father had never been part of his plan, even when he had reached the more 'mature' ages, but it always been a part of Sue's plan. So, why, if fate was good and all, was he presented with a child without having any input other than conception, when Sue and Reed had to try and deal with the heartache once a month for three years? Surely that was just cruelty?

Still, the three of them had sat together on the ground, looking through the bags. Reed handed one to Sue, and then passing the other to Johnny. He'd looked at it strangely for a moment, as if wondering why Reed was giving to him, but he realised that this probably wasn't a good time to be stubborn, so he took the bag tiredly, and opened it up.

The first thing that he came across was a paper folder that caught his attention, shoved into the back of the back as if to keep the back of it hardened. He took it out, laying the back to one side, and pulled out its contents. The first thing on the pile was the birth certificate, which he took into his hands and inspected closely.

_Certified Copy of an Entry. _

_Persuant to the Births and Deaths Regestration Act 1953._

_Registration District: New York _

_Sub-district: Brooklyn_

_Child:_

_Date and place of birth:_

_First of April 2004_

_Brooklyn City Hospital, Brooklyn, New York_

_Name and surname_

_Jessica-Skye Morgan Storm_

_Sex:_

_Female_

_Mother:_

_Name and Surname:_

_Hallie Carole Morgan_

_Maiden surname:_

_N/A_

_Surname at marriage if different from maiden surname:_

_N/A_

_Father_

_Name and Surname: Jonathan Michael Franklin Storm_

"Jonathan." Johnny muttered under his breath, a groaning disappointment there, but his tone suggested that he almost expected to find his full first name there. "Why did she have to put Jonathan?" He asked the sheet of cream paper, which gave him no answer.

"What do you mean?" Sue asked him from across the room, her eyebrows knitting together in a frown as she looked up from a pair of child's summer shoes in her lap.

He lifted the paper, and pointed to the space he had stopped looking at. "Father's name." He said simply. "She wrote 'Jonathan'. She actually put my full name."

Reed's following frown was on that Johnny had only ever seen on his face, and that was when something that was meant to be working, wasn't. "She can't have done." He said simply.

Johnny handed the sheet of paper to him. "She has done." He said, leaning closer to point it out. "Right there, see."

Sure enough, the name _Jonathan Michael Franklin Storm _glared up at Reed, but still, he frowned, handing the paper back to Johnny. "I thought Hallie didn't know for sure that you were the father." He reminded him.

Johnny frowned, taking the paper back in his hands. "Oh yeah." He said simply, her words ringing out in his ears from little more than fifteen minutes previously. His name was printed on the sheet despite the fact that Hallie told him there were three possibilities for a father. And it can't have been something she'd had reprinted that morning, or the day before, because the issue date in the corner was dated to the 15th of April 2004, two weeks later from Jessica's birth date.

"I guess, on some level, she always wished that it was Johnny." Sue said with a gentle shrug.

Johnny said nothing to this. He couldn't. After all, why would Hallie have wished that it was his child when it would have been more logical for her to want it as Leo's. He was the steady guy. Johnny was just the guy she screwed to get over being screwed.


	5. Since When Has Anything Shocked You?

Chapter 5:

An hour later, the sun was just starting to set on what had previously been a peaceful and relaxing afternoon for Johnny. However, he hadn't let the presence of his new sleeping daughter ruin what chance there was left for relaxation. Sue had insisted that he stay near her, just in case she woke up, but he had complained, and done everything bar kicking and screaming to get out of it. Sue, however, had rounded on him and reminded him that _someone _had to cook dinner (Sue, he hoped, he liked her cooking), and _someone_ had to clean the house (Ben, most likely), and _someone_ was busy setting up the spare room for Jessica to stay in (Clearly, Reed, as he was the only one left). Either way, it meant that Johnny was left lying on the couch, his head comforted with a pillow tucked beneath it, and his feet propped up on the opposite arm chair, staring, once more at the child.

However, the staring that he had been doing all afternoon was starting to drag on him now. He reached behind him, feeling around blindly as his fingers encountered first the lamp, and then the wetsuit material case that held his PlayStation Portable. After all, if he had to stay where he was, he might as well enjoy himself in the process. He knew that he had no chance of leaving, because Sue could see him through the open plan kitchen, and she made a point of keeping the eyes in the back of her head trained on him. He never used to believe her that the eyes in the back of her head were functional, until she fell pregnant. It would seem that this sixth sense was only possible with the aid of a child in the house.

He wondered if he'd be getting them anytime soon, or whether it was just a mother thing.

Ben and Alicia strolled into the apartment as the sun finally set, both grinning like fools, which instantly made Johnny feel even worse about himself. It seemed everyone was having a better day than him. In fact, he was starting to think that Fate was starting an 'I Hate Johnny Storm' club with Destiny and God.

"Hey, guys." Ben's booming voice echoed. Johnny found himself casting a thought that it might wake Jessica, and he looked up at her quickly. It wasn't an instinct to check, but rather, a desperation for her not to wake up. He'd rather her be asleep for as long as possible, delaying the inevitable awkwardness.

Sue and Reed came in from the kitchen, where they had been sitting opposite each other whilst the dinner cooked. Johnny had, a few times, looked up at them rather jealously. He'd had a lot of things that he'd liked to be doing, but no, he had to stay and watch the kid.

"Ben. Alicia." Sue said with smiles as she approached them, Reed following behind her, looking at Ben expectantly. "How was your afternoon?"

Ben grinned triumphantly. "Brilliant, thank you." He said, his gruff voice filled with a happiness that was rarely there unless Alicia was around.

Alicia smiled, grinning uncontrollably in no particular direction than towards Ben's voice. "We've got something to tell you." She said happily.

Johnny snorted lightly from where he hadn't raised from the couch. "I think you're forgetting that I'm now the only person who doesn't know." He pointed out.

The others all looked at him, having expected nothing less than sarcasm from the youngster, and then went back to their conversation. "So," Reed urged. "What's the big news?"

"Ben proposed."

"We're getting married." Ben nodded.

"Oh my God!" Sue squealed, reaching out and embracing Alicia, who returned the hug. Over the three years, the two women had become very close friends, and they were each thankful for the additional female company with all the men around. When Alicia had first moved in, it was impossible to tell who was happier; Sue or Ben. "Congratulations!"

"Thanks."

Reed gave Ben a friendly hug, which, judging from the difference in size, meant that Reed automatically had to stretch out his arms. "Told you she'd say yes, man." He reminded him from that morning.

Johnny, sitting on the couch, decided that the people standing somewhere behind him, getting excited about another wedding coming up, were clearly having more fun than him. He also remembered that they were his family; albeit a very dysfunctional one, but they were still his family. Ben was his brother as much as Reed was, making Alicia his soon to be sister, in a way. They were a family. They saved people together, and they stuck around for each other; no matter what. Like Reed and Sue had done for him all afternoon.

He abandoned his game, leaving his PSP on the arm of the couch. Taking a deep breath, forcing himself to be supportive of his family like they were too him, he went over to Ben. He gave him the biggest smile he could, and hit out at his shoulder lightly. He'd have done it harder, but he'd learnt the hard way that he wasn't immune to the pain that came from trying to hit Ben.

"Good going, big guy." He said kindly, before going back over to the couch, leaving four very stunned people in his absence.

As he sat back down, not bothering to spread himself out and get comfortable now that the others were back, he picked up his game again, taking it out of the paused mode he had left it in.

Ben was the first to react to his mood. "Okay." He said simply. "You're being nice." Johnny nodded in confirmation, but never lifted his eyes from the game. "Who are you and what have you done with Johnny?"

Johnny raised his eyebrows, still not looking away from the screen. "Yeah, well, I'd like to see you come up with some wisecracks after a shock."

Sue rolled her eyes at his use of the word 'shock', but Ben simply laughed. "Since when has anything shocked you?" He asked.

Reed made a strange sound. "Well, you'd be surprised..." He pointed out.

Johnny blindly jabbed his thumb towards Ben's chair, where Jessica was still sleeping, unnoticed by Ben. "See for yourself, she's clearly not going anywhere." He said simply.

"Johnny!" Sue protested at his tone.

"What?" He asked, looking up at her from his game. "It's true, right?"

She didn't have a chance to answer him, as Ben, gaping at his occupied chair, spoke up before her. "Okay...who is that kid in my chair, and why does she look like Johnny?" He asked.

Johnny smiled falsely up at Ben. "That's a good question, Benny boy. I asked it myself two hours ago."

"What's going on here?" Ben asked, clearly confused.

"That's Johnny's daughter." Sue explained simply.

"What?"

"'Johnny's daughter's' got a name, you know." Johnny pointed out, his eyes fixed on the PSP screen once again.

"Her name's Jessica." Sue continued, casting Johnny a withering look as she did so. "She's inherited Johnny's abilities with fire, and her mother couldn't cope."

"So," Johnny jumped in. "Hallie got really selfish and decided that she'd just abandon her here, and now we're stuck with her." He said unfairly, turning up the volume of his game.

"Johnny."

"What?"

"Do you have to play that right this second?" Sue asked him tiredly.

"Would you rather me be getting under your feet and being annoying?" He asked, not looking at her.

"No, but-"

"Then yes, I have to play it now."

Sue mimed the notion of pulling her hair out, causing a small chuckle from Ben. Then, however, she sighed heavily, and went into the kitchen. Reed followed her, seeing how obviously distressed she was.

"Sue..." He said slowly, to her turned back.

As soon as she heard his voice, she turned around, finding that he was right behind her. He put his arms loosely around her. "It'll be okay, we can sort this out." She said quickly, as if trying to assure herself more than him.

"I know it will be." He smiled confidently.

"Johnny just...he can do this, he just needs help." Sue told him.

Reed nodded. "Then we'll help him."

"But-"

"Just..." Reed started, but then he cut himself off, smiling at her guiltily for what he was about to say. "I know what you're like, so just remember that you're Auntie Sue and not..." He trailed off again, but she caught his meaning.

"..not Mommy?" She finished for him. He nodded, and she gave him a reassuring smile, putting her hand on his cheek. "Don't worry, there's only one child in this family that I want to be mother to, and I'm carrying him around twenty-four seven." She said, notioning to the curved stomach between them.

"Good." Reed smiled, before pulling her closer, glad that they had another moment alone. "So..." He said quietly. "We're having a son."

"Yes, we are." She nodded, smiling uncontrollably.

"There's me thinking that this would have made you forget." He joked.

She laughed lightly. "You can't forget something that's sitting on your bladder." She pointed out.

Reed laughed at this, knowing that Sue now went to the bathroom more times than the rest of them put together thanks to their son's new most comfortable positioning. When their laughter died down, they remained staring into each others eyes. "You're happy, though, right?" He asked her, a slither of his insecurities coming back. "I mean, this is still an amazing thing?"

She nodded strongly, her smile unphased by his sudden doubt. "Of course it is." She told him. "I couldn't be happier."

"Good." He smiled, pausing to place his lips upon hers briefly. "Because I can't be happy if you're not happy."

Sue felt her cheeks become invisible for a moment, something which had replaced her habit of blushing under Reed's romantic comments. "When did you get so incredibly romantic?" She teased him lightly.

His lips found hers again in response. Even though it was a chaste kiss, so that they weren't complained about by the others again, it was still filled with the passion that had overcome the shared passion for science. It was still echoing all their marriage vows which they stood by every day. It was still perfect and right.

When they parted, they rested their foreheads together, and Sue smiled up at him, feeling her cheeks disappearing again. "You're still outnumbered." Reed teased her lightly.

Sue laughed gently. They'd had a phase where Sue had practically begged for the baby to be a girl, so that there would finally be a balance in their dysfunctional household. Having another boy running around would have unsettled it 4-2 to the males, although Jessica's presence raised it to 4-3.

"I'm sure we can sort that out." She told him seductively, her voice low by his ear.

"Hmm...that sounds interesting." Reed replied.

"Hold up." She told him laughing, knowing just from the look in his eyes what he was thinking. "Let me have this one first." She said, gesturing to her stomach. "I might change my mind after actually going through the labour."

Reed laughed, shaking his head. "No, no changing your mind." He told her. "I heard you. Lots of babies. End of discussion."

She shook her head at his playfulness, glad that, since their wedding, he had chosen to let it loose more often. She snaked her arms around his neck, and kissed him gently once more. "As long as they're our babies." She told him sweetly.

He nodded. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Their lips would have met again, but they were interrupted by the sound of footsteps. Looking up, still locked in their embrace and unashamed to be caught in this manner, they saw Johnny standing awkwardly with his hands in his pockets.

"She's uh..." He started, biting his lip nervously. "I think she's waking up."


	6. You Look Like Me A Bit

Chapter 6:

The prospect of their new arrival waking up had them all in a state of mild panic. Even Sue had to admit that she was a little uneasy about it. They were all worried that Jessica was going to be upset when she realised that Hallie wasn't there, and even worse, when she realised that Hallie wasn't coming back. Still though, they were hoping that Johnny being her father, and him being there even though Hallie wasn't, would help to calm her, even if it was just a little.

They stood in the living room, surrounding Ben's chair. Because he couldn't sit anywhere else, Ben stood beside the couch, where Alicia was sitting on the arm, leaning against him with his large rocky arm around her. Beside him, Reed stood, his arms folded and feet firmly set in place whilst he observed the scene before him, feeling considerably amused for the situation at hand. However, he wasn't watching his newly discovered neice anymore, but rather, his wife and brother in law.

Johnny and Sue stood side by side, facing the chair. Johnny had his hands in his pockets, and his shoulders raised up high, looking like a scolded child who had been dragged to the mall for a long round of clothes shopping. Sue stood beside him, watching him calmly as he frowned at the girl, with fear in his eyes. Even though this was probably the strangest situation that the Fantastic Four had found themselves caught up in, the bickering between the two siblings proved entertaining enough to lift their spirits.

"She's gonna wake up and start...screaming or something."

"She's a toddler, not a baby."

"Do toddlers scream?"

"Honestly, Johnny!"

"What?"

"She won't scream."

"Promise?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"She's going to want Hallie, and Hallie's not here."

"So she might scream?"

"She might do."

"Mommy..."

It was only the gentle, sleep-filled voice which put an end to the snappy comments between the siblings. The tiny girls voice filled the room even though it was barely more than an unconscious grumble, and still, the room was silent. All of them were afraid to move, afraid to speak, as if attractive attention to themselves was going to start off the screaming.

However, it was Sue, to no one's surprise, who kneeled down before the chair. It took a fair moment, as her stomach stopped her from getting comfortable in her regular kneeling position, and had Johnny been thinking clearly, he might have reached out to help her down, but he wasn't thinking clearly. He wasn't sure he was thinking at all. He was just staring.

Jessica rolled her face into the pillow that had been moved beneath her head, as if wiping the sleep away from it as she started to wake up properly. Johnny used to do that, he remembered, but always found that it made him more comfortable, and less willing to get out of bed. However, this wasn't the case with Jessica, who placed her head back in it's original position and blearily opened her eyes. Eyes which, by colour and familiarity alone, kept Johnny frozen in his place.

"Hey, sweetie." Sue said softly, as Jessica's eyes searched the space around her before settling on the woman knelt in front of her.

Jessica frowned, her tiredness still showing on her face, coupled with confusion. "Where's my Mommy?" She asked quietly, pushing herself up into a sitting position. She sat with her back against the chair, pressing into it as much as possible as she carefully watched Sue.

"She's not here right now." Sue told her.

"Who are you?"

Sue gave her a gentle smile. "I'm you're Auntie Sue." She told her, with the gentle voice, more high-pitched than usual, which she only reserved for children.

"I want Mommy, Auntie Sue." Jessica said, still quietly, still sounding as if she should be back asleep than sitting up looking around her. Her curiosity, however, seemed tamed for the moment, and she was unwilling to let her eyes wander from Sue's, whose face she was studying intently.

"Jessica, when Mommy brought you here, where did she say you were going?" asked Sue, who was getting her mind's eyes confused with memories of her younger brother and the girl sitting before her. The resemblance was too great for any of this to be a mistake.

"To live with Daddy." She said, one of her hands raising up and playing with a curl of her hair.

"Did Mommy say where she was going?"

Jessica nodded. "She's going to Nanna Lucy's and Grandpa Donnie's."

This was the first words that caused a noticable reaction from Johnny, but only Reed had noticed it. He didn't jump, exactly, but there was a definite flinch that came from a sudden realisation. Johnny knew something, something that was clearly not good, and it was to do with Hallie's parents. Still, whilst he was curious about this, he knew not to question him on it now.

"Did she say why?" Sue asked, earning no words from Jessica this time, but just a simple shake of her head. "Okay, that's okay." She assured her.

Jessica frowned gently again. "Will Mommy be here soon?" She asked.

Sue bit her lip, trying not to let her unease show to the girl before her. "No, honey," She said softly, quietly, trying to keep her calm from the fit they all knew was about to come. "She's gone to see your Nana and Grandpa now."

Jessica looked over Sue's shoulder, seeing nothing but a potted plant in the corner. "Already?" She asked in a higher tone, and there was no doubt why. She was realising what had happened. She knew that if Hallie had gone to see her parents already, that meant she'd been left behind.

Sue nodded. "I think so." She said.

Jessica watched her again, studying her face as if looking for the trace of a lie; a smile to say this was a joke. Johnny found himself waiting for a timebomb to explode on them. She'd been left behind, and she knew that. She knew what it meant that Hallie wasn't there.

"I don't believe you." She said finally, in her tiniest voice yet.

"Jess-"

"No! I don't believe you!" She shouted, her voice raising more than several volume scales from her tired whispers they had heard a moment ago. Now, it seemed, she was very much awake, very much alert, and so was her voice. "I want Mommy! I want Mommy!"

The chants of 'I want Mommy' came accompanied with struggling whilst Sue reached out to hold her. However, as she fought against the arms that meant to comfort her, her legs started to kick out furiously, and Sue was forced to step back. If one of her legs hit against her stomach, it could hurt the baby, and it wasn't a risk she could take, especially when one kick in the wrong place could end up with them losing everything they had fought for.

As she came back into a sitting position, with the kicking girl still in the chair, fighting the air around her as if just to warn them all against coming near her, she looked at Johnny helplessly. As soon as he felt Sue's eyes upon him, he turned his face away from Jessica's tantrum. Her eyes alone were begging him to do something, because she could not, and he was about to step down and get her to ask one of the others, who would handle the sitation better than him when the constant parade of 'I want Mommy' told him something.

She wanted Hallie. The first words he had heard from his daughter were begging for the parent that wasn't there. Her whole life she'd been surrounded by and raised by the woman she called her mother; the woman who'd carried her for nine months and then given birth to her; the woman who was now gone. Hallie had turned her back on the daughter who was now screaming out for her. But she'd gone, and she was too far away to hear. She wasn't there. She'd gone.

She wasn't there; so he had to be.

Still haunted by the voice in the back of his head, which continuously told him that he wasn't cut out to be a father, and that he was going to do everything wrong, he stepped towards the chair. However, he didn't crouch down fully as Sue had done. Instead, he reached down, and picked Jessica up. She wasn't heavy, but she was awkward to hold when she was still kicking out furiously, yet he didn't have to worry about being hit like Sue had done. She was only small, and wouldn't hurt him anyway.

He turned around, setting in Ben's chair with Jessica in his arms, and then be brought her into his lap, holding her tightly, but not too tightly against him, as he hoped to calm her down. Sue smiled at his attempt, noticing instantly how natural he seemed to hold her. Jessica stopped kicking almost instantly, and restored in throwing her stressed body against Johnny's as he held her. Her head landed on his shoulder, and one hand of his kept it rested there, but not forcefully. His other hand reached across her body almost protectively, and lay simply on her back, feeling the rising and falling of it as she took deep, stubborn breaths.

"Hey, kiddo." He said quietly, not needing to raise his voice, he realised, when her ear was about an inch away from his mouth. He knew that he had to say something to her, rather than just being the stranger who had picked her up to stop her kicking out and hurting someone. "I'm here." He told her, and then looked up at Sue for a moment, who nodded at him approvingly. "I'm here now. Dad's here."

"Don't want you." Jessica sniffed furiously, even though she wasn't crying. "Want Mommy."

Johnny frowned. His first effort at being a father had been shot down, but a part of him urged him on, reminding him that he couldn't stop there, and that he couldn't give up. He didn't recognise this part of him, but thankfully, it told him what to say.

"Well, Mom's not here right now." He told her, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice as he remembered how angry he was with Hallie. "But I am. Dad's here."

Jessica lifted her head from his shoulder, putting her hands on his chest and forcing herself up. He let his hand drop from her hair, and let it fall to his side, whilst the other still remained on her back. She looked at him with curious eyes, frowning at him as she tried to figure him out. As she kept herself propped up with her hands sprawled on his chest, her pale brown hair tumbled over her shoulders, falling around her face whilst she stared at him.

"Are you really my Daddy?" She asked him.

"Yeah." He nodded.

She frowned even more, tilting her head to one side. "I thought you didn't know about me."

"Well, now I know." He told her simply, wondering what, exactly, Hallie had told her about her father.

"Am I staying here with you, like Mommy said?" She questioned.

"Yeah."

"Forever?"

Forever, now, there was a good question. Did Hallie ever intend to come back? Was she ever going to realise that she'd made a mistake? Would she never even miss her daughter after three years of watching her grow into the girl that now scrutinised him in the same way that they would stare at a stranger.

"Looks like it." Johnny said simply, unsure of what else to say. He didn't want to say 'no', in case she kicked off again, and he didn't want to say 'yes' in case she kicked off again.

Jessica didn't ask him any more questions about that, but she started to look around her instead. She'd briefly glanced at the other people watching her when she'd woken up, but she'd had Sue right infront of her, so she hadn't needed to concentrate on the others. But now, she could see them clearly out of her eye, and she turned to face them, her back now pressing into Johnny's chest. "Who are they?" She asked him in a tiny voice, shying away from the onlookers by scooting as far back against Johnny as she could.

Johnny pointed at each of them in turn, and introduced her new family to her. "That's Auntie Alicia, Uncle Ben and Uncle Reed."

She stared at them, but none more than she did at Ben. She looked at him, almost fascinated, but she remained silent for a long time. Ben gave her his gentlest rocky smile, but that only made her tilt her head to the side again.

"Uncle Ben looks funny." She whispered loudly to Johnny, even though the others could clearly hear her.

"Uncle Ben is funny." Johnny said, handling it with all the sarcasm and lack of grace that he usually spoke about Ben with. However, remembering that this was a three year old, he added: "But you don't need to be scared of him. He's not scary."

"I know." Jessica nodded. "Not scary. Funny." She smiled at Ben, admiring him as if he were something on a television, but regardless, Ben smiled back. The others also smiled, as they'd never heard Johnny tell someone that they didn't need to be afraid of Ben. He'd always referred to him as the mascot, the big guy, the rock, whatever amused him at the time. "I like him." Jessica decided chirply, as she turned back around in Johnny's lap, so that she was facing him once again. "You look like me a bit." She commented.

'A bit' was an understatement. They were almost duplicates, save for gender and size. Yet, there was the fact of her eyes that screamed of her mother. The same bright blue eyes, almost icy blue, which stared down everything they came into contact with. He was willing to bet, as well, that when she laughed, they sparkled like Hallie's used to when she'd laugh.

"I guess I do." Johnny agreed, not wanting to dwell on thoughts of Hallie for much longer, in case he started steaming all sorts of foul language in front of his three year old.

"So does Auntie Sue." Jessica pointed out, without looking to her side at Sue, because she'd already inspected her face when she had first woken.

"That's because she's my big sister." Johnny told her.

Jess looked at him curiously. "Does that mean she looks after you?" She asked innocently.

Johnny laughed lightly, meeting Sue's eyes over Jessica's shoulder. "She doesn't have to, but she does." He said, whilst Sue smirked at him and shook her head. She went over to Reed, and stood at his side, his arm sneaking around her waist as she watched her brother proudly.

"Auntie Cass was Mommy's big sister." Jessica said, almost sadly. "She looked after Mommy lots."

Johnny nodded. "Yeah, I remember."

"But...you're not my big sister, you're my Daddy." Jessica said, as if she were speaking to herself. "But that still means you're gonna look after me, right?"

Johnny took a deep breath and let out a sigh, feeling the responsiblity literally piling onto his shoulders as he nodded. "Yeah, I am." Johnny's hand came back up to the side of her head, and placing his palm against her hair, he stroked down her curls. Her hair was soft, just like he imagined, just like he remembered Hallie's to be.

He felt himself being transported back to a child not much older than Jessica herself, as he remembered the last time he had stroked a child's hair like this. He was about four years old, and his cousin, Daniel, had just been born. He was still a baby, and not much entertainment to a boy who had expected his new cousin to be immediately ready to play soccar in the yard and football down the park. So, his mother had called him over, and showed him how to play with babies. He didn't do much, but he saw how Sue had gone over and stroked Daniel's head, so he had done the same, but he had almost done it too roughly. So, his mother took his hand, and placed it against Daniel's tiny clump of hair, and showed him how to do it softly, all the while, whispering to him: "_Gently, that's right. Like that. Good boy. You have to be gentle, because he's still only little. You have to be gentle_."

_Be gentle._ His mother's voice still rang out to him. _Be gentle_, she had said.

Jessica was silent for another while, watching him with curious eyes once more, until she spoke in a tiny voice. "I don't think I mind that."

-------------

Sue had been clever enough to realise that Jessica was going to be hungry when she woke up, and she has cooked enough dinner so that she could eat as well. Spaghetti Bolognase. Johnny's favourite, usually, because Sue added something which made it taste different, but he still couldn't figure out what. He'd sit there through the whole meal, and list of different spices that he could think of, but he'd never be able to guess what it was that made it different. Jessica, as she guessed, was hungry, and loved spaghetti. Johnny hadn't thought of something like that. He hadn't realised that a three year old would want dinner when they ate.

He'd toyed around with his dinner at first, shoving it around on his plate. As the seconds passed, his appetite shrivelled further and further until it dissappeared completely. So, he rose from the table, putting his saved portion in the fridge, and saving it for later.

He went out onto the balcony, no longer bathed in warm sunshine like he had been that afternoon, but instead, he found himself looking up into the crystal clear night sky that blackened the city around him. He leaned against the edge of the wall that surrounded the small extension, and for a moment, he lost himself in the emptiness of night. The sounds of cars underneath him drowned out those coming from the kitchen behind him, and the only light that shone into his eyes was that which beamed down from the moon.

When he was a kid, he used to look up on nights like this, and dream about aliens and spaceships and adventures. He never imagined that one day, he'd go into space, and come back a superhero. He lived the adventure that he always dreamed of, but when he was nine years old, he'd always imagined that he'd fight alone against ten thousand martians, who would fall like flies against his incredible strength. He didn't imagine the fight taking place on earth, against the man who had once been his boss, and who now, because of them, was locked in a giant box in Latveria.

He'd watched a movie once, he couldn't remember what one, as he had never seen it again, but afterwards, over dinner, through bathtime, and whilst he was being put to bed, he had told his parents and his sister about how much he wanted to go into space. His mother had been there.

"What happened in here?"

The voice from beside him broke him out of childhood fantasties of rockets and space guns, and he realised that Reed was standing beside him, mimicking his position as they both stared up at the sky together. He wondered what was going through Reed's mind when he looked at the stars, although, they probably reminded him of Sue. They probably reminded him off good things, not childhood dreams which had been scientifically disproved and existed only in movies.

"What?" Johnny asked, when he realised that Reed's sudden presence had left him not listening to the words that had escaped him.

"I said, what happened in there?"

Johnny shrugged. "I wasn't hungry."

"I'm not talking about that." Reed told him. "I'm talking about what happened with Jessica. You say you're not cut out for being a parent, but you sit her in your lap and she seems to forget that she's been abandoned-"

"That's her reaction, not mine." Johnny pointed out to him.

Reed accepted this, understanding that Johnny hadn't been expecting such a warm reception from his daughter. Instead, he turned the conversation towards what he remembered from earlier. "What is it about Hallie's parents?"

"What about them?"

"Jessica mentioned them and you nearly jumped out of your skin." Reed pointed out, and Johnny went to speak, to deny it, when he added: "I saw you."

Johnny sighed, looking up at the stars for an answer, but not getting one. "Hallie's parents live out in Australia." He said aloud, dropping his eyes from the stars to the skyline on the other side of the riverbank. "Middle of the outback. Unless you know exactly how and where to find them, you probably never will."

"Oh." Reed said, contemplating this for a moment. "Thats...that's a problem."

"You bet it is." Johnny nodded. Of course it was a problem. If they couldn't find Hallie's parents, they couldn't find Hallie.

"There you are." Sue said, from behind them.

Instinctively, they both turned away from the star lights and the city lights to face Sue, still leaning against the wall of the balcony. Johnny had half expected Sue to turn up at some point, simply because he was having a conversation with Reed. She didn't do it on purpose, but somehow, she always managed to walk in when Reed and Johnny were having a civilised, sensible conversation, even though they were rare. He remembered having to literally shut Sue in the bedroom before the wedding so that he could have the essential 'if you ever hurt my sister, I will hurt you' speech with his soon-to-be-brother-in-law.

"Here we are." Johnny confirmed, as she came to stand before them, wrapping her arms around herself to fight off the chill that neither of them could feel.

"I've been looking for you." Sue said, looking directly at Johnny. "You okay?"

He gave her a false smile. "Just great, can't you tell?"

She looked at him for a moment, wondering whether to question his sarcasm, but instead, she looked at Reed. "Have you seen Jessica?" She asked him.

Reed frowned. "Don't tell me she's missing."

"No." Sue said quickly. "She was following Ben around while he showed her things, and then she scampered off somewhere."

"She's exploring." Johnny spoke up, whilst the other two looked at him curiously. "She's got a new bedroom in a new house. It's time for her to explore."

"I thought you didn't know anything about kids." Sue asked him with a sly smile.

"I don't." He said simply, shrugging. "It's just what I'd be doing."

Sue smiled sadly at him. "Johnny-"

"I'm going to bed." He cut her off quickly, not caring that it was only seven in the evening. He just knew that Sue was about to embark on a long, meaningful speech that he wasn't sure he could bear at that moment, and he needed a way to get out o fit.

"You can't just-" She started to call out to him as he walked towards the kitchen.

When he cut her off, he turned sideways to face her. "I appreciate that you're trying to help, Susie, but the only girl I've ever loved just told me that I'm never going to see her again." He pointed out. "I need to get that straight in my head before I do anything about being a father."

Sue looked at him wearily. "She's your daughter."

Johnny gave her a sad smile. "Yeah. She's Hallie's daughter too." He told her quietly, with his voice almost lost on the evening wind.

He turned without another word, and walked through the kitchen, so lost in thought that he didn't notice the scampering three year old appear at his side, holding up a doll almost as big as her proudly. "Daddy, look----" She cut off when she realised that Johnny had already walked past her, and as his door shut loudly, she turned on the spot, looking at Sue as she approaced her. "Is Daddy okay?" She asked.

Sue smiled at her, putting her hand on top of her head as she stood beside her. "Daddy's fine, honey, he's just very tired today."

Jessica, however, didn't look convinced. "Doesn't Daddy like me?" She asked in a tiny, fearful voice.

Sue looked over her shoulder, meeting Reed's eye for a moment. The matching heartbroken look she saw on his face told her that he had heard Jessica's question as well and he simply looked at her. He didn't know what he could advise, so he kept to silence. Sue casually stroked her hand over Jessica's hair, feeling her leaning against her legs.

"Daddy's just tried, honey." She repeated quietly, unsure of what else she could say.


	7. Be The Better Person

Chapter 7:

About half an hour later, Sue ventured towards Johnny's bedroom. Jessica was sitting in Reed's lap on the couch, and they were watching something on the television which most children would find boring, but Jessica was watching as if in a trance. Ben and Alicia had gone out to tell a few of Alicia's family members and Ben's own family about the engagement, and probably wouldn't be back for a few hours. She knew that Jessica would be perfectly happy with Reed, considering she had followed him around most of that afternoon after he had 'given her a bedroom', as she had told Sue.

She knocked on Johnny's bedroom door, but didn't stand around waiting for him to answer her. She knew that if she did, he would just say that he wanted to be alone, or, in a worse scenario, he'd get up and lock the door. When she went into his room, she found him sitting in the centre of his double bed, eyes closed and occassionally facing the ceiling as he lightly banged his head against the headboard of solid wood behind him.

"I'd like to be alone." He said, not looking up to see who entered when he heard the door close again.

"I've given you time to be alone." Sue said, crossing the room, and sitting down on the edge of his bed. She was silent for a moment, thinking that maybe her presence would stop him banging his head, but he continued doing so. "You'll give yourself a headache doing that." She told him quietly.

"I've already got one." He replied simply.

She sighed. "Johnny-"

"Look, Sue..." He interrupted, stopping the banging of her head and sitting up properly. "I don't really want to deal with this right now." He said, propping himself up on his arms.

"You don't have a choice." She told him simply, bringing her legs up onto the mattress and tucking them underneath her. "You have a daughter to think about now. A beautiful daughter."

"A daughter I didn't want." He muttered.

"How can you say that?" She asked him, looking at him almost helplessly. "You're all she's got."

"I'm not cut out to be a parent, Sue. It doesn't come easy to me like it does with you."

"What about it do you think is easy?" She challenged him quickly.

He couldn't answer her, because he knew how badly she had fought to have the family she would soon have, and he wouldn't hurt her by passing it off as 'easy' for her, no matter how much of a mess he was in himself. He simply sighed heavily, shaking his head. "I can't do this." He told her. "I'm not going to do this."

"You have to." She told him. "She's your child, and you need to take care of her now, whether you want to or not." He looked away from her, focusing his attention on the other corner of the bed. "You can't run away from this, Johnny." She added more quietly.

"Who are you to decide what I do?" He snapped back quickly.

"You and Jessica are family." She pointed out to him, emphasising the word 'family'. "And families don't get to just walk away, they fight for each other."

"I didn't exactly see Hallie fighting." He countered.

"Then be the better person, Johnny." Sue replied quickly.

He shook his head again. "I can't do this." He insisted again.

"You won't have a choice." She reminded him.

"It's not a case of 'won't', Susie. I physically can't!"

She looked at her younger brother, seeing how desperately torn up he was inside. For a moment, she was even sure that she had seen tears in his eyes, but he had blinked them away too rapidly for her mind to register them. Johnny wasn't like this. Johnny took risks. Johnny brushed emotions off. Johnny never thought about others. But, she realised, Johnny now needed to change. He couldn't take risks when he had a life other than his own to consider. He couldn't brush of emotions when whatever he brushed off could make a huge difference to his child's emotional state. He couldn't go out at the small hours in the morning to a party, and come back at the same time the others were having breakfast, because he needed to be there for his child. He needed to be there to put her to bed, and Jessica needed to know that he would be there when she woke up, especially now. It was only so long until the fear of further abandonment began, and then, she needed Johnny more than she might ever need him in her life, and he would have to be ready for that.

"You have to try." She whispered to him.

Johnny was silent for a moment, remembering the fateful times he had said 'I'll try anything once, and twice if I like it' when faced with something new. "What if I still can't?" He asked, a fear in his voice evident. What if he really wasn't capable of looking after Jessica? What would happen then?

"Then at least you'll have tried." Sue told him, standing up from the bed.

"Sue-"

"Just...come out of this room, okay?" She asked him gently. "Ben and Alicia have gone out, so Jessica's just watching TV with Reed."

"Sue-"

"You just have to be there, Johnny." She told him. "All she needs you to do is be there."

---------------------------------

Just being there had been easier said than done, it turned out. Jessica had been more than happy curled up in her Uncle's lap, whilst Reed flicked through the channels, between some documentaries and the news channels, but when Johnny had made an appearance, and sat down on the other end of the couch, she had watched him for a moment, and then gone over to him. In her empty place, Sue had sat down, and, as usual, Reed's arm had snaked around her as she snuggled against him. Johnny didn't even have the energy in him to complain about the public displays of affection.

Jessica crawled into Johnny's lap before he could make any protest, and he simply let his arms fall around her in a loose hug. Sue smiled at him making an effort and went back to watching the television, but turned again when she noticed that Jessica was squirming a lot, and she let out a small giggle.

"What's so funny?" Johnny asked her suspiciously.

"Nuffin' funny." She told him, pressing her face up against his chest as she finally got comfortable and sat still. "Daddy warm."

Of course, he realised, she could feel his warmth radiating from him. Now that his body temperature was over two hundred degrees on a normal day, it would be more than comfortable for a child to curl against and bask in the warmth. He shook his head slowly, but didn't move from the position. He didn't want to risk her kicking up a fuss again from him moving her out of his arms, so he let her stay there, ignoring the smiles that Sue and Reed exchanged because of this.

He paid no attention to what was on the television, as he had no intention of being remotely interested in it. He knew that they only watched the news incase there was some emergency that they didn't know about, and Reed only ever watched documentaries otherwise. He knew enough to know that the one he was watching was about animals, so that was probably why Jessica watched it as contently as she did. Kids like animals, after all. So he simply stared at the screen, doing the thinking that he'd rather have been doing in his room, like he had done before he'd been interupted.

His first thoughts immediately drifted to Hallie. Hallie had been his best friend since kindergarten, although then, he'd not considered her his best friend. No, she'd been the girl who always second guessed him, and who always turned out to be right. Her friends started to hang around with his friends, and when he was there to show off, she was there to put him in his place, whether they were five years old and climbing trees, or seventeen years old and drinking shots in their friend's kitchen. He couldn't count the amount of times in his teenage years that his father had been called to the hospital, and he would find Hallie at Johnny's side, being the first to sign the cast on his wrist, telling him what a dork he was for showing off again.

She'd always been there, through the good and bad. He remembered standing at his mother's funeral, he on one side of his father, and Sue on the other, yet never feeling more alone. However, once the service had started, he'd fought so hard not to cry. At eight years old, he was sure that he was too old to cry, and that he'd look silly, even if it was his mother he was saying goodbye to. However, it was the way that Hallie stood beside him, and slipped her hand into his, squeezing it tight the whole time, that gave him strength, even when he'd watched his father and sister falling apart more than they'd ever done before. He hadn't cried at all that day, and he never did until a month later, when it finally hit him that his mother wouldn't be there at his next football game. That had been what set him off. And it had been Hallie who found him hiding behind the tree at the bottom of the school field, and she'd sat with him whilst he cried, and she even promised him that she wouldn't tell anyone about it. She never did, either, even to that day.

He couldn't remember a time when she'd not been there for him, which had always made him feel bad about the times when she'd lie about being upset, because it meant that he couldn't be there for her. Even when they were younger and it was uncool to talk to girls, he would find her hiding away to cry, like he had done that single time, because the other boys had picked on her, and she hadn't told him about it.

That was how he got into so many fights at school; standing up for Hallie.

He wasn't sure he still believed what was going on. A part of him wondered if this was still a cruel joke on him, to make up for four years of no contact. He felt bad about it. He'd tried to find her, but she'd moved house, she'd changed her number, and so had her sister, Cassie. It was impossible to find her, and he was ashamed to ask any of the others for help. But still, this wasn't like Hallie..

She was the girl who would take care of him at a party, when he had drank too much too quickly, and had ended up throwing up into someone's parent's bedding plants. She was the girl who helped him pass his exams when he seemed doomed to fail. She was the girl who always let him copy her math notes, even though they always got in trouble for it. She was the girl who never told anyone about the time that he cried. She was the girl who would tell him that his hair was getting too long. She was the one who would tell him when he needed to put more suncream on. She was the one who was always at his side, the first to tell him that he was doing something wrong. But then again, even though she was, she was still the girl who would then show him how to do it the right way.

She wasn't the girl who would get scared and abandon her child in less than twenty four hours. That wasn't her. That wasn't Hallie. No one could change that much in four years.

Because of this, a part of him hated her. Although, he wasn't sure whether it was because he felt this was unfair on him, or whether he just hated her because of the act she had committed. Child abandonment. It was the sort of thing you saw when you flicked onto Oprah, and for a moment, you told yourself that whatever the situation, it would always be wrong, and that a child should always be with your parents, but that was just for the moment, and then you'd change the channel again.

There was no changing the channel now.

He felt a burning in his eyes, one that didn't come from the familiar tingle of flames licking his body, but rather, the oncoming sensation of tears that he had fought off all but that single time. He couldn't cry over this. That would be stupid, and he didn't even have Hallie there to tell him that. So, instead, he forced his attentions onto the girl in his arms instead. He didn't want to, because he didn't know what, if anything, to think, but he knew that Sue was right, and he would have to think about it sometime, so why not do it now?

He had to admit, there was something about the child that binded them, a feeling he couldn't describe, but it was clear that she had captured a part of him already. Being a father had never been part of the plan though. He'd always imagined himself being the seventy-year-old man who was still jumping dirt bikes and, knowing him, still setting himself on fire and flying. He'd never considered the fact that he might have settled down with a particular girl and raised a family. How can you consider that option when most of the girls don't even hang around for breakfast afterwards? Now, in less than six hours, he had become a father to a three year old. He'd always have to make time for her, and take her to the park to play. He'd have to be at school productions and parents night, something that he'd always hated himself. He'd have to be at her side when she was sick, and to cheer her own when she was doing well.

He'd have to grow up.

He didn't think he knew how to be a grown up and a father, not like Reed did. Reed would work for a living, for a start, whilst Johnny just seemed to drag the people around him from one disaster to the next. Reed read scientific journals, whilst Johnny read magazines about bikes and cars, and other things that didn't bear mentioning. Reed woke up in the morning and had a healthy breakfast with his coffee. Johnny woke up around lunchtime and had leftover pizza for breakfast with a can of soda or a beer.

Johnny went to parties and got completely slaughtered. Johnny jumped off dirt bikes performing stunts that most movie stunt men wouldn't attempt. Johnny also regularly jumped off building and set himself on fire. Johnny brought back numerous amounts of women into his life. Johnny played music loudly from his stereo, and the lyrics were usually explicit. Johnny drove sports cars that were more designed for looking good and going fast than safety. Johnny left dirty clothes on his floor until Sue yelled at him to pick them up.

But now, that would have to change. He couldn't go out all night and make as much noise as he did when he got in, because Jessica would be asleep. He'd actually have to give a damn about his health and safety because of what might happen if he were to come to some mortal harm, and then Jessica would be left without a father. He couldn't play music that would more than likely leave Jessica needing a shrink before she turned five. He couldn't drive around town in one of his cars with her in the back, because it wasn't safe enough for her.

God, he was going to be a terrible father.

It was the way Jessica looked at him that made him feel the most useless. It was the same way he'd looked to his parents when he was that age. The expectance, waiting for guidance, wanting to know everything that they had to offer because they were the guiders, the protectors, the parents; and in a child's eyes, parents knew everything. Yet, at the same time, her eyes were the exact replica of the woman he loved. Once they locked on something, like they had done earlier, with a hopeful, yet dejected expression on her face when she realised that her mother wasn't there.

Now, he discovered as he cast his gaze downwards, those eyes were drooping. He recognised what was happening. She was exhausted, and when he saw the time on the clock on the news, he saw that it was almost nine-thirty, and that he had, in fact, been sitting there for over two hours now, in complete silence. Beside him, Sue was already asleep, her head resting on Reed's shoulder. Johnny felt guilty for a moment, because he'd relied on her so heavily that day, and being pregnant, she didn't deserve to have his whole world on her shoulders. Reed was still focused on the television, his fingers lightly stroking Sue's shoulder through the material of her top.

Johnny turned his attention back to Jessica, who was still fighting sleep. He was reminded of himself as a small boy, on Christmas Eve, trying to stay awake and keep his eyes open for as long as possible. He always loved Christmas. Even after his mother had died, it had always been a day when nothing bad ever happened, so he'd try to stay awake on Christmas Eve, and then he'd wake up hours before dawn on Christmas morning, and then he'd repeat the same slaving process of fighting sleep that night, trying to make Christmas last just that extra hour longer.

Nine-thirty, it seemed, had become the latest possible time for 'bedtime'.

But, Sue was alseep, and Reed was acting her pillow. Ben and Alicia weren't home yet. That left him to cover the first bedtime, and he didn't even know what he was doing. He thought it through, what had been his before bed routine? Bath first, usually, but it was too late, and she was too tired for a bath. Next had been pyjamas. She must have some pyjamas in the bags in the spare room. Oh, and brushing the teeth. They could skip that for a night, he couldn't bare the thought of fussing around in the bathroom for hours just to get teeth clean. She'd have to do it first thing in the morning anyway. Then it was into bed, lights off, and job done.

Easy enough.

He tightened his arms around Jessica, who responded by getting more comfortable, and then he stood up with her in his arms. Reed looked up at him questioningly, and Johnny shrugged at him. "Bedtime." He said simply, before turning and leaving the room.

He sat Jessica down on the edge of the spare room bed, a double bed that Reed had pushed up against a wall so that they could put her in the far side, and she wouldn't fall off. It was good thinking, and he knew that he wouldn't have thought of this. He grabbed one of the bags that was filled with clothes, and managed to find two pairs of pyjamas; one thick and full length nightgown, and a set of shorts and t-shirt cover in yellow rabbits. He chose the short and t-shirt set, and handed it to her, because even he knew that she would be too hot in the nightgown.

He helped her out of the clothes she was wearing, and then slipped the t-shirt over her head, and helped her step into the shorts, and then he lifted her back up onto the bed, watching as she crawled over onto the other side. She settled beneath the blanket, clutching the same old doll that he remembered she'd tried to show him earlier, when he'd ignored her. He pulled the blanket up over her, and watched as she buried her face in the pillow with a sigh.

"Nu-night, Daddy." She told him through a sleepy yawn. "Love you."

Catching his breath in his chest, he was silent for a moment, and then managed to choke out "Night, Jessie," in the final moments before she fell into sleep.


	8. I Thought About It Really Hard

Chapter Eight:

_"Johnny...Johnny, wake up, kiddo."_

_Seven year old Johnny felt himself being shaken awake, much to his annoyance. It was a Saturday morning, and his football practice had been cancelled, so he wanted to spent longer sleeping in than he usually did. "Dad?" He asked, rubbing his eyes as he recognised the empty voice of the man who shook him._

_Frank Storm looked down at him, and Johnny, still half-asleep, didn't recognise the red-rimmed eyes of his father. "Come on, kiddo," He said simply. "Breakfast's ready."_

_Confused, Johnny slipped out of his bed, not bothering to pull the covers back over afterwards. He didn't even bother to change out of his pyjamas like he usually did in the mornings. He just followed his father downstairs, all the more confused. He never got woken up for breafkast at weekends - only ever on a school morning. Weekends were special when either of his parents would do a big cooked breakfast, and they would wait until everyone was up. It was always Sue who was up last, and he'd spend ages trying to get her out of bed. He knew she was up later because Mom and Dad let her stay up longer just because she was older._

_When he reached the kitchen, he couldn't smell the bacon frying, or the sausages cooking, or the toast toasting. He couldn't smell breakfast. Sue was already sitting at the table, looking down at the wooden surface quietly. She was still in her pyjamas as well, and her long blonde hair was slightly tangled where she hadn't brushed it yet. She still looked a bit tired, so Johnny guessed that she had probably been woken up as well, but her eyes were a bit red, and she looked scared._

_"Whassa matter, Susie?" Johnny asked her as he climbed into the chair beside her, his legs swinging where his little legs didn't reach the floor on the higher chairs they had brought last summer._

_Sue looked up at him, biting her lip. "Mom's not here." She said in a tiny voice, which made her sound younger than Johnny was at seven, not the eleven-year-old girl that she was._

_Johnny frowned, and looked at Frank as he sat down at the table opposite them. "Where's Mom?" He asked._

_Frank held out his hands, like he and their mother always did when they needed to talk about something important. Sue put one of her hands into Frank's, and Johnny followed, and they all held on tightly. "Johnny, Susan, I need to tell you something, and it's not something nice." He told them. "It's going to hurt for a while, but I need you to be brave."_

_"Where's Mom?" Johnny asked again, as Sue grasped their free hands together between them, still biting her lip tightly between her teeth._

_"You know that your mother was sick for a long time-" _

_"Where's Mom?"_

_"Johnny, let me finish." Frank told him, keeping the harsh edge out of his scolding tone, but still, it stopped Johnny from asking again. If anything, the lack of discipline in his father's voice was what stopped him, because he knew that it meant something was wrong. "Now, your mother was very sick, and when people get that sick, they don't always get better."_

_"But Mom said she was going to get better." Sue piped up. "The doctors gave her the new medicine."_

_Frank smiled sadly, shaking his head. "The new medicine stopped working a while ago, sweetheart." He told her gently._

_"Why did it stop?" She asked._

_"I don't know, Susan. I don't know. It just...it happens, sometimes."_

_"Is that where Mom is?" Johnny asked. "With the doctors?"_

_"I heard you get up in the night." Sue admitted. "I heard you and Mom go out somewhere. I heard the car."_

_"Yes." Frank confirmed. "I took your mother to the doctors after you two went to sleep. Your aunt stayed with you, but your mother got very ill last night, and we had to take her back to the hospital."_

_"But she just got home again yesterday!" Johnny complained. She was meant to be there. She was meant to be at his softball game tomorrow. She promised._

_"She got a lot worse, Johnny." Frank told him. "We can't help her here like the doctors can at the hospital."_

_"Did they help her?" Sue asked._

_"Can we go see her?" Johnny asked._

_"No, we can't." Frank said, almost inaudibly._

_"Why not?" Sue asked quietly._

_Frank gripped their hands tightly, looking first at his daughter, and then at his son. "Susan. Johnny." He told them, ensaring the attention of the children that was already undividedly his. "The doctors did everything they could to help her, but I'm afraid your mother passed away early this morning."_

_There was a long silence, in which Johnny wondered whether he had heard his father right. His first thought was that this meant there would be no one to watch him at his softball game tomorrow, but then he realised that he didn't want to play softball tomorrow, or the day after. He looked at Sue, not knowing what to do, but she didn't look at him. He didn't realise until then that he was holding her hand so tightly that it could have broken her fingers, but he knew that wasn't the reason that there were tears in her eyes, and on her cheeks, and dripping off her chin..._

_"Mom's dead?" She asked in a sob._

Johnny snapped awake with a start, bolting up into a sitting position without having to think about it. For a moment, he sat there, supporting himself with his upper arms, and breathing hard as if he had been running though. He hadn't been running though, he had been dreaming, or rather, he'd had a memory. He ran his hands over his face, wiping away the cool sweat that covered his skin. He'd not dreamt about that day for a long time.

Slowly, he realised why he was dreaming about it. It was usually only when bad things were happening that he remembered the morning that he and Sue had been sat down and told that their mother had died in the night. Sometimes, randomly, he'd dream about days which held no particular meaning, a recurring one being when he had been about five years old, and Sue, at nine years old, was telling her parents over breakfast that she wanted to go to see the stars when she was older. He remembered that he had laughed at her, saying that she wouldn't know how to drive the spaceship, but his mother had told him that he would need to learn then, so that he could drive her.

But instead of happy times, he was dreaming about the day his mother had no longer been a part of his life, and he knew that this was because the little girl who was in the room beside him had lost her mother the day before as well. Only, Jessica's mother hadn't died, she had abandoned her.

The temptation to go back to sleep was great, but he knew from the sun streaming through the curtains already that it was too late in the morning to do that. He shook himself, lying back on the pillows again anyway. It had been a long night, and he hadn't got much sleep with all the tossing and turning as he had thought about the somewhat disasterous, yet interesting afternoon he'd had, which had started out with him sitting up on the balcony, sunbathing and embracing the freedom he had in his life.

Jessica had told him that she loved him. That had been the main reason he hadn't been able to sleep. It hadn't been thoughts of Hallie, the girl he had known for almost twenty years, who had kept him restless all night, but the girl he had known for under six hours. He'd tucked her into bed, trying to get it done as quickly as possible so that he could retreat to his own room, and she had told him that she loved him. She hadn't even mistaken him for someone else, as she had clearly said 'Daddy'.

He'd tried to ask himself what that meant. After six hours, Jessica had fallen in love with him as a father, even though he was shying away from her as much as possible. What did that mean? Did being a father automatically cause him to love her in return? He hadn't been able to say it back, because his throat had dried up into something resembling the Grand Canyon when he had croaked out a tiny 'goodnight' to her, but he hadn't really tried to say that he loved her. He wasn't sure if he did. How did you know if you loved a child? Wasn't it something you were meant to know without needing to spend a sleepless night thinking about it like he had?

This caused him to worry even more. If he had to think about it, and you weren't supposed to, did that mean that he didn't love her, or worse, that he wasn't capable of loving her? Sure, he was doubtful that he'd make a good father, but surely he was capable of loving a child, even if he was a disaster when it came to raising them.

What about the feeling of warmth that he had gotten the night before, when she had curled up against him on the couch? Did that mean anything? Or was it simply the same body temperature radiating from her that she had felt from him? Was it because of their firey blood that they felt warm to each other, or was it the fact that it was that blood that bound them?

He'd sit there all day worrying if he let himself, and he knew that this would make Sue hunt him down and drag him out of his bedroom kicking and screaming if she had to. So, he hauled himself out of bed, and threw on the jeans he was wearing yesterday with a clean t-shirt, before leaving his bedroom.

Reed was already sitting in the kitchen when he arrived there, looking over that morning's paper which had clearly already been delivered, and wth a morning coffee in his other hand. He looked up when Johnny entered.

"Morning."

"Hey, man." Johnny replied simply, dropping down in one of the five vacant chairs around the glass-topped table.

"You didn't sleep well, did you?" Reed guessed, only needing to look at the younger man for a second to realise that.

"No." Johnny said, finding himself too tired to lie and mess about at this point in the morning. He saw Sue entering the kitchen and frowned. "You okay, Susie?"

Reed was about to say something else, but catching sight of Sue entering the kitchen distracted him. Johnny wasn't surprised. He was distracted by her appearance too. She looked pale, and her cheeks had a slight redness to them, even though her eyes looked void of anything except exhaustion. "Sue?" Reed asked, instantly getting to his feet and going over to her side. She stopped when he reached her, and allowed him the chance to place his hand against her forehead while his other hand rested on her side. "What's the matter?"

She gave him a simply, tired smile. "Morning sickness."

Johnny frowned, slightly confused. "I thought you didn't get that anymore."

"You're right." Reed agreed, surprising Johnny. It wasn't often that they agreed on anything. "Sue?"

"I'm fine. I'm okay." She insisted. "I'm just a bit tired."

"You haven't had morning sickness for over a month now, Sue." Reed reminded her.

"It's not uncommon for it to return--"

"Sue--"

"Yesterday was a stressful day." She pointed out. "And I had a lot on my mind last night. I didn't sleep so great. That's probably why it came back this morning."

Johnny leaned back in his seat, eyeing her suspiciously. "That's the same for me, but I didn't wake up with my head down a toilet."

Sue looked at them both, trying to shake off the worry. "Look, I'm still only five and half months pregnant." She reminded them. "Some women have morning sickness for the entire nine months. I consider myself very lucky that mind isn't that strong on the occassions I do have it." She said, moving to the nearest chair and sitting down.

Reed sighed, giving her a gentle smile. "I still think you should take it easy." He suggested.

She smiled back at him to reassure him, and gestured to how she was sitting. "I'm taking it very easy." She pointed out.

"Good." He said, giving her a kiss on the forehead.

"Goodmorning." Alicia greeted, as she made her way into the kitchen without the aid of her cane. It hadn't taken her long at all to be able to memorise the layout of the house after she'd moved in.

"Morning, Alicia." Sue said.

"Hey." Reed replied. "Where's Ben?"

"Still sleeping." Alicia said, as Reed took her hand and guided her into a chair as someone did every morning for her.

"And still snoring, from what I heard when I walked past." Johnny murmered, catching Sue's amused eye for a moment, but the others ignored him.

"It's awfully quiet in here." Alicia commented. "I take it the little one is still asleep?"

"She must be." Sue nodded.

"I checked on her about half an hour ago, she was fine then." Reed said, when he saw in Sue's face that she was thinking about getting up to check on her.

Sue turned to Johnny. "Johnny, can you go check on her?"

Johnny looked up, slightly startled at the request. "Why me?"

Sue looked at him pointedly. "Do you have to ask me that?"

"Is this one of those 'she's your kid' things?"

"Just go." She told him tiredly, not in the mood to spend an hour arguing with him over every little thing that morning.

Muttering under his breath, which no one could hear, Johnny got up from the table and left the kitchen. He was still muttering under his breath, but even he didn't know what, when he got to the hallway, and he only really stopped when he got outside of the door to the spare room. Really, he thought, he should have done this when he had gotten up a moment ago, as it wouldn't have taken ten seconds to open the door, look in, and close it again, but he hadn't thought about it, in the same way that he hadn't thought about the extra dinner portion last night. His own portion he had never gone back for.

He creaked the door open, trying to make as little sound as possible when the door made a gentle straining sound. He opened it just enough to slip half his body through, as he didn't want to wake her up if she was still sleeping. If she was anything like as grumpy as Hallie was in the mornings, then he didn't want to cross her, let alone be the first person she saw.

However, Jessica was still sleeping, and peacefully, at that. She had kicked the blankets off her, clearly getting hot through the night even though he had chosen the coolest pyjamas for her. Under her arm, she still had the strange looking doll in a death grip, cuddling it to her even in the deepest sleep. Her pale brown hair was spread out behind her in a streak, showing him just how long it really was when it wasn't bouncing on her shoulders.

Standing there, he watched the gentle rising and falling of her chest. She was sleeping, just like she had been after she told him that she loved him last night. Whilst he stood there, he felt an emotion tapping at the side of his brain, begging to be let in. What was it? Was it love? No, he remembered, because when he loved her, he wouldn't have to think about it. He'd just know.

After some deliberation, he settled on relief. Relief that she was sleeping peacefully, and that she was, for the moment, not getting hysterical because Hallie had left her. He sighed heavily, and then went back into the kitchen, closing the door behind him as quietly as he had opened it.

Reed and Sue looked at him expectantly as he entered the kitchen again. "Is she okay?" Sue asked.

Johnny nodded. "Yeah, she's still aslee--"

A scream cut him off, and the moment it had sounded the room silenced. Johnny had been in burning buildings, atop collapsing bridges, and many other places where he had heard a child's scream before, but he'd heard no sound like this before. It wasn't the peircing scream of a child who'd been snatched into the hands of Doctor Doom on the streets. It wasn't the agonising scream of a child who had been hurt. No, this was the deeper, heart-clenching scream of a scared, confused child. _His _scared, confused child, he realised quickly.

Sue made to move first, muttering "I thought this would happen," but Reed motioned for her to sit down. "Stay there, we'll go."

"Whoa there, what do you mean, we?" Johnny asked, noticing that Reed's hand was gesturing between the two of them, and not liking the look of that at all, but clearly it had worked because Sue had sat back down.

Another scream peirced the air, and Johnny's head whipped towards to door before all of the others. Twice. Twice she had screamed. Was she hurt? Was that why she was screaming? Whilst he was standing around wondering all the things that could have been making her scream like that, Reed had already bolted from the room, and turned around to see that Johnny was still standing there like an idiot.

"Johnny!"

"Okay." He said, snapping out of his trance, and rushing after him. "Okay. I'm coming."

They got to the bedroom door, just in time for Jessica's third scream to hit them. Reed had stretched his arm and opened the door before they'd even reached it, so the scream was that much louder, and Johnny resisted the temptation to cover his ears with his hands; for all the good it would have done him. Jessica was sitting up in the middle of the bed, clutching the strange doll against her more tightly than ever, with her legs crossed beneath her as she kept her head bowed down.

Reed sat down on the edge of the bed, leaning over so that he was closer to Jessica. Johnny didn't know what he should do. It would be stupid for him to get on the bed as well and overcrowd her, so he just stayed standing at the edge of the bed, doing his trademark pose of raising his shoulders slightly and putting his hands in his pockets.

"Jess? Jessica. Jess, it's okay, you can stop screaming." Reed spoke to her, keeping his voice considerably loud because he was trying to get her to hear him over her shouting.

She stopped shouting when she heard someone was there, but kept her eyes tightly screwed up, blocking out everything around her as she concentrated on feircely hugging her doll. "Where am I?" She asked, her tiny voice hoarse from shouting so much.

"This is your new room, remember?" Reed said, dropping his voice and using the same gentle tone that Sue would use with her.

Jessica opened one eye first, and then the other, looking around her to see if whoever was speaking was lying. She first saw the duvet cover she was tangled up in, and recognised the chocolate brown cover that was on it for the moment. She recognised it, and then looked up, seeing the man sitting beside her. "Uncle Reed." She said in a quiet voice, as if remembering from a distant memory, when it was really just the night before.

He smiled at her, nodding. "That's right." He said softly.

Jessica frowned slightly. "Where's Daddy?" She asked in a whisper that suggested she was afraid he had left her as well.

"I'm here." Johnny piped up from the end of the bed, and Jessica seemed to relax instantly when her eyes fell upon her father.

Jessica was quiet for a while, and Johnny gave her his best reassuring smile, which he suspected had become more of a grimace. His mothers words over his baby cousin returned in his head. _Be gentle. _He was being gentle. He was doing his best, and Jessica seemed to like him. That was good, right? That was what his Mom had told him to do. It was the only thing that he could remember anyone telling him about how to behave around children.

"Mommy isn't here, is she?" Jessica asked after a small silence, her eyes falling back upon Reed when Johnny simply bit his lip.

"No, honey, she's not." Reed said, shaking his head.

Jessica nodded, looking down at the doll in her arms, and playing with the edge of the dolls tattered blue dress. "Mommy's not gonna come back, is she?" She said, even quieter.

Reed took a deep breath. "I don't think so, no."

Jessica, still looking down, nodded again, and gave a little sniffle. Reed frowned at this, and reached out, putting his hand under her chin, and raising it gently. Johnny watched, mentally taking notes whilst Reed gave Jessica a soft smile, and wiped away her little tears with his thumb.

"Hey." He said softly, almost as if he were singing to her when he dragged the word out for so long. "Sweetheart, don't cry, you're face is too pretty for those tears." He told her gently, causing her to give her a smile. "There, that's better." He smiled at her, which made her smile grow. "Now, what do you say we go make you some breakfast? I bet you're hungry, aren't you?" Jessica nodded. "Right then, let's go."

Reed stood up as Jessica crawled to the side of the bed, slipping out from underneath the blankets as she gave a final sniff. She stood there for a moment, still in the shorts and t-shirt pyjamas that Johnny had dressed her in the night before, and looked around. She spotted Johnny and smiled up at him, holding her arms out to him.

"Daddy carry?" She asked sweetly, still sounding rather tired as her voice was the same grumbly, half-asleep tone which Sue had adopted a few minutes ago.

Reed watched as Johnny instantly, albeit silently, caved in, lifting Jessica into his arms and settling her onto his hip. He gave Reed a simple glance before they walked out of the room together, Jessica more than happy now that Johnny was holding her. Reed had to admit that he was surprised at how easily she had latched on to someone she only knew to be her father less than twenty-four hours ago.

They reached the kitchen, Reed entering first with a pleased expression when he saw that Sue had regained some of the colour in her cheeks. "Hey." Reed smiled at her. "You're not so pale anymore."

"Is she okay?" Sue asked, a small worried frown on her forehead.

"See for yourself." Reed said, stepping back and allowing Sue to see the father and daughter entering together.

"Morning, Auntie Sue." Jessica chirped with a smile on her face.

"Good morning, sweetie." Sue smiled, running her hand over Jessica's pale brown hair as Johnny placed her down in the chair beside her. "Did you sleep well in your new big bed?"

"Yeah." Jessica grinned.

"That's good."

"Uncle Reed's gonna make me breakfast." She announced, almost proudly, as Johnny dropped himself into the chair he had been sitting in before, at the end of the table. The seat between him and Jessica was filled by Alicia, so Johnny had returned to his previous seat

"I'm sure he is." Sue smiled at her niece.

"He's going to make Auntie Sue breakfast as well." Reed said, speaking to Jessica but casting his eyes to his wife all the same.

"Reed-" She went to object, but he cut her off with a protective and loving smile.

"You look like you need it." He said, before then turning back to Jessica. "Right, Jess, what do you want to eat?" He asked her.

Jessica screwed up her face as she thought, something which instantly reminded Sue of her younger brother. "Umm...what can I have?" She asked, almost tentatively.

"Anything you want." Reed told her.

"Anything?" She asked, curiousity leaking into her voice as she wondered how far she could test her limits.

"Anything that's breakfast." Reed pointed out.

She screwed up her face again. "Is ice cream breakfast?" She asked him hopefully.

"No, it's not." He told her, while Sue and Alicia laughed on either side of the little girl.

"Ohhhh..." She said slowly.

Reed turned towards the cupboards, opening them and looking through. "We've got toast...cereal..."

"Cereal!" She decided quickly.

Johnny looked up for a moment. He had been looking at the newspaper previously, debating as to whether or not the crossword was too hard for him to attempt without looking ridiculously stupid, and then laughing instead at the more-than-ridiculous personals ads which he had also found amusing. However, Jessica's breakfast decision brought back Hallie's voice from yesterday. _"She set her cereal on fire, Johnny. Her cereal." _He frowned a little, watching as Reed took a box of cereal from the cupboard and then started to pour it into a bowl. Should he bring up the point that it might not be safe to--

_Safe? Since when did you care about fire safety? _Asked an amused voice from the back of his head. His answer was simple however. This wasn't him setting things on fire, it was a three year old. Three year olds shouldn't be allowed near fire, let alone be able to set their breakfast ablaze. Yet, as stupid as he knew it would be, he didn't say anything. Part of him wanted to see this. When he held her, she was warm, no mistake about that, but he naturally assumed that of all children, not just ones with an unusally high body temperature, and there was the part of him that doubted Hallie was lying still, even though Jessica's appearance alone proved that he was the father. He just wanted to see whether she really did have the ability to set things on fire, or whether it was just a big joke on him.

So, he said nothing. No one did. It seemed that no one else recalled him sarcastically pointing out that, at Jessica's age, he hadn't been setting his breakfast alight. He raised the newspaper a little, yet he kept it low enough so that, when Reed placed the bowl before her, he could still clearly see Jessica. He didn't know why he was hiding it though. Reed and Sue were having one of their usual 'when the baby comes' talks, and Alicia was silently eating her own breakfast, so no one was paying any attention to him what so ever.

The first thing Jessica did was to stand up on the chair. He'd remembered that she'd done that at dinner the night before as well, because she hadn't been big enough to reach the plate from the height of the chair. With her new height, she picked up her spoon, and scooped up a spoonful of the cereal, watching with the childlike fascination as a few drops of milk escaped from the spoon. Still, Johnny watched.

The first few spoonfuls were completely uneventful. He started, after a while, to think that maybe Hallie had been lying, and something inside of him sunk. He didn't know what, exactly, had diminished, but he tried to convince himself that it was the excitement at seeing a child do what he did. However, the back of his mind knew that it was some kind of family pride which would come from seeing someone else, his daughter, at that, do what only the two of them could do.

Just as Johnny was about to seek out a pen for the morning crossword, knowing for sure that he knew the answer to thirteen-across, the event that he was waiting for happened.

As Jessica scooped up another spoonful of the cereal, and began to raise it to her waiting mouth, the cereal on the spoon spontaneously caught on fire. The surprise on her face was illuminated by the large hiss of surprise she gave as well as the new presence of flames before her which cast a glow onto her cheeks. The small yelp of surprise caught everyone's attention, and Reed and Sue's head whipped towards Jessica, just in time to see her drop the spoon back into the bowl, trying to get away from the fire, and the rest of the cereal going up in flames.

"Oh my god." Sue muttered, eyes wide.

Alicia frowned. "Is something burning?" She asked, sniffing the air.

"It's only Jessie's breakfast." Johnny told her calmly, even though he was staring

Jessica's hands were clapped over her mouth, clearly shocked at what she had done. "I didn't mean to!" She squealed quickly.

"Johnny, can you put that out?" Sue snapped quickly, while both the father and daughter were still staring at the bowl of flames; Jessica with a horrified expression, and Johnny with one of awe.

Johnny snapped out of it, and reached out, placing his hand nearer to the bowl and allowing it to hover over it. It was a trick that he had perfected over the years now, not needing to physically fan out the fire as long as he focused hard enough. Jessica watched him, her eyes flickering from Johnny to the flaming bowl as the fire gradually shrank down into nothing.

Jessica looked at him, her eyes wide with awe as she dropped her hands from her mouth and back down to her sides. "Wow." She said quietly, her eyes never leaving Johnny.

Johnny, however, tried his best to ignore the awe-filled gaze of his now undoubted daughter. He leaned towards the bowl and little, and nodded satisfactorily. "There you go." He announced, seeing that they weren't too charred. "You can still eat them."

Jessica still gazed at him though. "How did you do that?" She asked him, in a small, high-pitched, wonderous voice.

"I concentrated." Johnny said simply, looking through the crossword clues once again. He didn't stand a chance with five-down.

"What does that mean?" She asked, dropping her awe for a moment as she screwed up her face once more.

"It means that I thought about it really hard, and then I did it." Johnny told her, explaining it as best he could whilst realising that he could have come up with an unecessarily rude answer for twelve-down.

"Can you teach me that?"

And that was it. The feeling that he had been curious about whilst wondering whether she really could set on fire returned in full blast. She had managed to produce fire from nothing, and even though she had made no move to extinguish it, he knew that, if she learnt how, she'd soon be able to cease the flames as well as create them. It had taken him a while to have that sort of control over the fire.

But it was the question that intrigued him more. She was asking him for help. It wasn't a moment ago, when she was asking him to lift her up. She was asking him to help her control something that, for the moment, she had no control over. She was asking him to teach her something significant, something that awed her and that she respected for being powerful. Something that only he could teach her. She was basically asking him to start acting like a proper father to her, rather than just pay her the attention that she only begged for.

He left this question unanswered however, as he simply looked up at her for the first time, noting the hopeful expression in her eyes. "Eat your breakfast, kiddo, before you set it on fire again." He told her simply.

This coldness was noticed by all of them, especially Jessica, who looked at her spoon warily before picking it up again. However, before anyone could comment on Johnny's response, Reed took the focus away from him.

"Oh my god." He exclaimed, as he spotted the date in the corner of the newspaper Johnny was reading.

"What?" They all asked, save for the little girl eating her cheerios.

"It's the 8th of May." He said simply, as if that provided answer for everything, yet only Sue registered that this date had some importance.

"Oh." She said simply, realising what was meant to be happening.

Reed looked up at the clock. "I'm meant to be at the university in half an hour." He groaned. "God, I completely forgot."

Reed left the room, heading towards the bedroom so that he could change into something smarter than he was wearing then. However, Johnny raised his eyebrows at Sue.

"I'm guessing that's my fault?" Johnny enquired, seeing as he had already risen his pregnant sister's stress levels enough to bring back her morning sickness.

Sue shook her head, smiling as she heard their bedroom door slam quickly. "It's Reed's fault for not writing it on the calender." She pointed out.

Reed appeared in the room a few moments later, now wearing a smart suit. He stood at the side of the table, running his hands through his curly hair, which, although sometimes unruly after a long day in the lab, now appeared to be rather well tamed.

"How do I look?" He checked.

Sue smiled at him. "Very, very handsome." She told him, in a voice which made Johnny want to hurl to hear coming from his sister.

Jessica dropped her spoon again, this time to clap her hands, showing her approval for her smartly-dressed uncle. However, on her second clap, she sent embers zooming from her hands. These embers instantly hooked on to, of all the flamable things in the room at that time, the end of Reed's tie.

"What's burning this time?" Alicia asked.

She was met with a howl of laughter. Johnny was unable to contain himself at this. It had been funny enough, he remembered from the short time he was at dinner the night before, that Ben had been corrected by Jessica about something, but this just topped the charts. Sue also covered her mouth, trying not to make it look like she was laughing at her husband's misfortune, but it was hard not to, and Jessica simply looked horrified again.

"Oh no!" She exclaimed. "I didn't mean to do it again!"

"It's okay." Sue assured her, putting her hand on her arm even though she was still laughing. By this point, Johnny actually slid off his chair, and landed on the hard floor with a 'thump, all the while, still laughing uncontrollably.

"I'm sorry, Uncle Reed!" Jessica told him.

"It's okay, Jess." He told her, laughing a little himself as he stretched his hand into a flat shape, fanning out the flames before they burnt onto his shirt as well. "It's alright." He told her again, as he left the room to no doubt change his tie.

Johnny finally managed to recover from his laughter, and stood up from the ground, using the table to pull himself to his feet again. He stopped halfway through this feet, allowing the final few childish giggles to escape him whilst supporting all his weight on the edge of the table. Once he was standing upright, he moved over to stand behind Jessica's chair, and, in a very fatherly way, he put his hands on her shoulders. She looked up at him.

"I didn't mean to do it, Daddy!" She insisted worriedly.

"That was," Johnny began, still red in the face from laughing. "Without a doubt," Jessica looked down, expecting to be told off, "the best thing I have ever seen in my entire life."

She looked up at him again. "You're not mad?" She asked.

"Hell no!" He asked, starting to laugh again.

She frowned at him. "You can't say that." She told him.

"What?" He asked, his laughter ending as he frowned a little.

"'Hell' is a bad word." She told him. "You have to put a dollar in the swear jar."

Johnny looked at Sue, who shrugged, and then to Alicia, who had laughed at Jessica's words, and then he sighed. "Oh, you've gotta be kiding me." He muttered under his breath.


	9. Like I Have Time For Another Girl

Chapter Nine:

The rest of breakfast had, thankfully, passed without further incident. Johnny, however, was the only one who thought that any other coincidental accidents such as with Reed's tie would be highly amusing. Whilst Sue had found it funny as well, she had pointed out to him that it was dangerous for Jessica to be using her power without knowing any control. Johnny didn't really care about that at the moment, though. 'Reed's Tie' was going to be a fond memory in his mind, probably for the rest of his life. He only wished he'd had a camera. It had been such a Kodak moment.

After breakfast, Sue had taken charge of Jessica, much to Johnny's relief. While he had to admit there was a clear bond between him and Jessica that he couldn't explain, such as the strange feeling he'd had when he held her last night, and what had ran through his head when he heard her scream for the first time only a short while ago, he didn't really know what he was doing. When he crawled out of bed, he grabbed the nearest clothes to him, and then quickly washed up before all of breakfast had been devoured by the other members of his estranged family. He wasn't used to, or particularly fond of the idea of getting Jessica up, dressed, washed, clean and presentable, as well as dealing with breakfast, entertainment, and other things that he tried not to think about.

Sue had been the one to go through Jessica's clothes the other day, and Johnny guessed that it wouldn't take long for his sister to put all of her neice's clothes into the drawers in the spare bedroom, which was apparently no longer spare. Twenty minutes later, Sue and Jessica reappeared. Jessica was now wearing a small pair of jeans, which had a embroidered butterfly pattern around the hemline of each leg, and a simple red t-shirt.

Ben, by now, had awoken, and he and Alicia were sitting in the living room with Jessica. The little girl had found something on the television for kids, and it had captured her attention in an almost zombie-like mesmerisation. While she stared at the screen from her seat beside Alicia, she distractedly mumbled along with the songs that came from the programme, never taking her eyes off of the screen, and only subconcsiously remembering to blink. Such was the way with children and television.

Sue had gone into her bedroom, and had showered and gotten dressed. She came back to see Jessica more than happy in front of the television, and then spotted her brother still in the kitchen. However, he was leaning against the side of the table, watching Jessica curiously, deep thought written all over his face. She bypassed the couple and the child in the living room, and went straight into the kitchen. Ben looked up, seeing the two siblings, and followed them.

"What are we going to do?" Johnny asked, as soon as the two had joined him. "I mean, this is going to get out eventually, we can't hide her."

So, that's what had been on Johnny's mind. Sue was surprised, but wondered how no one else had thought about it. What would it mean when the public realised that the Human Torch had a daughter? Jessica would instantly become a target, a way to bring in the personal against Johnny. For anyone who wanted to hurt them, it was going to be a living, breathing target. Sue remembered having the same conversation with Reed one night, shortly after they decided that they were going to start trying for a baby together. It had been a big decision, and would be for anyone, but when you're living a life like thiers, there were more important things to think about other than the impact on their lives. For a while, they'd wondered whether they would even be able to keep up the superhero act as well as being parents, yet after a sleepless night and lots of conversation, they decided that they would manage, and they knew without saying that either of them would go to any lengths to keep their child safe. Sue knew that this would be the same for Johnny. He might pretend to be a hard-case most of the time, but she had seen him save children before, and there was an instinctive reaction he had around them.

"We don't have to hide her." Sue pointed out to him.

"How do we explain this?" He wondered, gesturing out his arm to Jessica, who still sat dreamily before the television.

"You have nothing to explain, Johnny." Sue told him.

"Well, what do we tell everyone?"

Sue sighed. He had her stumped there. What did they tell everyone? What happened when someone saw Jessica out with them, and they had the picture sprawled across the front page? What happened if a reporter had been outside when Hallie arrived yesterday, and had seen her turn up with a child and yet leave alone? There just weren't enough answers to the questions that kept popping up out of nowhere. "I don't know." She admitted quietly. "But at least we don't have to worry about her being looked after." She added, trying to add a slither of silver lining to the seemingly hopeless situation.

"What do you mean?" Ben asked her, before Johnny could jump in.

"She can join a kindergarten in the fall, but until then, we can keep her here during the day." Sue explained simply.

"What happens when we get called out?" Johnny asked, knowing that, while the calls for rescue were few and far between as of recently, it wasn't exactly something they could schedule against their personal lives.

Sue gave him a strange look, and pointed at her stomach. "You see this, Johnny? My big, fat, pregnant belly?" She asked him. "There's a baby inside there, and until that baby comes out, you know Reed won't let me go and save the world with you guys anymore." She smirked at him. She could remember many a time early into the pregnancy where she had been torn between her taste for her adventure and the knowledge that she was carrying a life.

"Okay, fair enough." Johnny nodded. "But what happens after you have the baby?" He pointed out. "There will still be another month of summer left, and--"

"You think I'm going to up and leave, and have my son here on his own?" Sue challenged him.

Johnny shook his head apologetically. "I didn't mean that, I just--"

"I know." She smiled softly. "Someone will still be here, Johnny. Probably me, but there'll be someone. She'll be okay." She assured him.

Ben smirked. "I bet you'll find a way to turn that kid into a chick magnet, anyway."

Johnny rolled his eyes tiredly at Ben. "Like I've got time for another girl on my hands at the moment." He muttered sarcastically.

Ben laughed. "Sounds like our Johnny's finally growing up."

"You take that back!" Johnny told him, narrowing his eyes dangerously.

Before the fight could kick off, Sue stepped in. "Have you thought about what you're going to do yet?" She asked Johnny, distracting his attention away from their smirking friend.

"What do you mean?" He asked her.

Sue glanced at Jessica, and then back at her brother. "She can start fires, Johnny. Just like you." She pointed out. "I'd say she needs to learn self control even more than you did when you first got these abilities."

"More than Johnny?" Ben asked, teasingly, and while Johnny simply glared at him, Sue nodded.

"She's still young." She pointed out. "She's still learning the difference between right and wrong, and no child should possess this kind of ability when they haven't learnt that yet."

Johnny nodded, agreeing with Sue for what felt like the first time in ages. Even though they were relatively close siblings, agreeing wasn't their strong suit. "So," He sighed, folding his arms over his chest. "How do I get her to control it?"

Sue gave him a small, yet confident smile. "You teach her."

--------------

Teaching her had been a simple idea, fair enough. In Johnny's head, it ran along the idea of simply saying 'Don't do it', like he did when it came to fire safety with most kids that they rescued from burning buildings because they'd been playing with matches. However, this was different. This wasn't a kid playing with matches, this was a kid producing fire from inside her body, and teaching her to control that? Easier said than done.

It was mid-afternoon, and Reed was still at the university. His presence would have been much appreciated, and probably would have helped them all at the moment when the phone had rang, and the assistance of the Fantastic Four was required down by the bridge. Apparently there was some disturbance with a foreign tradesman who seemed to be importing something which they felt was illegal and dangerous. Yet, with Mr. Fantastic out giving lectures, and the Invisible Woman expanding by the day due to their son, that left only The Thing and the Human Torch to answer the call.

Johnny could vividly remember a time when the phone would ring, and then the entire team would be out of the door within three minutes, at the very most. They were so used to dropping everything and leaving that it was second-nature to them now. Johnny could remember coming back to the apartment afterwards, and finding that they'd left the television on in their hurry to leave, or that the dinner he'd left on the side was very, very cold now.

Having a three year old wrapped around one of your legs, begging you not to leave, wasn't something that he was used to.

The phone had rang ten minutes ago now, and Johnny had turned over a new leaf in the book of discoveries about his new daughter. It turned out, that she didn't like the idea of him going out very much.

"Let go, Jessica." Johnny said, trying to remain calm, but still desperately trying to reach the door.

However, the tiny girl was holding on tight around his knee. "Don't go away, Daddy!" She begged him.

"I'm not going away, I'm going out." He corrected her.

She looked up at him, hope filling her eyes. "So, you're coming back?" She asked.

"Yes, I'm coming back."

"Do you promise?" She asked suspiciously. "'Cause Mommy didn't come back."

And that was it. Johnny was stunned into silence. She didn't think that he was coming back. She thought that he was leaving her the way that Hallie had done. She thought that he was capable of that. He couldn't move, all of a sudden, despite the previous need to leave. He wasn't even sure that he was breathing, but he hadn't blacked out yet, so he realised that he must have been.

Sue approached them from where she had been standing by the couch. She hadn't been much help in previously getting Jessica to let go of her father's leg, because the little girl seemed to hear and see no one but Johnny at the moment. Yet, she put her hand on Jessica's shoulder, which caused her neice to look up at her, even though she didn't realise Johnny's leg. "He's coming straight back, sweetheart." Sue assured her. "But he needs to go and save people." She said.

"I don't want him to go." Jessica whimpered, clinging tighter to her leg.

"I gotta go out, Jessie." Johnny said, using the shortening of her name which no one else in the household did. Reed and Sue called her 'Jess', and Ben and Alicia generally called her by the full name, but he was the only one that called her Jessie. It seemed to be her favourite, as well. However, this time he spoke, there was a regret in his voice, as if he knew that it would be better for everyone, except the general public, if he stayed. But with Reed away, and Sue unable to replace him, he had to accompany Ben.

"Do you love the other people more than me?" Jessica asked, her attention diverted away from Sue and back to Johnny now that she had heard his voice again.

"What?" He asked.

"I saw you on the telly with the people today. On the news." She explained. "You were smiling at them. You don't smile at me until I burnt Uncle Reed's tie."

Johnny inwardly sighed. It was true. Other than his outburst of laughter that morning, he wasn't sure he'd actually smiled at Jessica properly, without forcing it. Had he? Hadn't he? Either way, it made him feel guilty, especially because the three year old who was his daughter had picked up on the fact that he was happier around the general public than he was around her, for the moment.

"I don't love the other people more, okay?" He told her quietly, his head bowed to look directly at her. Unknown to him, Sue smiled, knowing that this was going to be the closest to an 'I love you' that Johnny was going to say for the moment. However, despite it's lacking compared to the full phrase, he was making an effort, which was good.

"Promise?" Jessica asked.

"Yeah, whatever."

"Johnny-" Sue stepped in, and the second he heard her voice, he snapped his head up to face her.

"I'm trying." He cut her off quietly, so that Jessica wouldn't pick up on it.

"I know." She nodded, not laying into him as he had suspected she might. "I was going to say that you're doing well." She assured him, knowing that he needed a boost of confidence.

"It might have been easier to say 'I promise', though." Ben piped up from beside the door.

Johnny turned to him. "Come on, rock face, we've got a job to do." He said, and then looked down at Jessica. She was still clinging to his leg, and he put his hand on top of her head. "I'll be back later, okay?" He assured her.

"'Kay." She whispered quietly, unwinding her arms from around his leg, and stepping back to beside Sue.

The two of them watched as Johnny and Ben left the apartment, bickering quietly amongst themselves as they usually did, yet Sue noticed, as the elevator closed, that Johnny's responses were slow, and half-hearted, and he seemed to pay more attention to returning Jessica's tiny wave. He didn't have the mental energy to argue with Ben, and that was always the first noticable sign that something was wrong with him. Yet, it was easy to see, for once, what was on Johnny's mind. He didn't want to leave. Even though he wouldn't have admitted it at that moment, he hadn't wanted to leave Jessica when he knew she thought he wasn't coming back.

Jessica looked up at Sue once the elevator had blocked Johnny from view. "Does Daddy love me, Auntie Sue?" She asked quietly.

Sue reached down and stroked her soft hair. "Of course he does, sweetheart." She replied.

Jessica smiled sadly up at her. "I think he just pretends to 'cause Mommy's not here."


	10. Oh Man, I Sound Like Sue

Chapter Ten:

The incident at the bridge had turned out to be a misunderstanding, but it hadn't exactly been a quick one. In between the arrival of customs, the police, and eventually, some guys from the army, Johnny had been left to wonder whether or not Jessica really thought he wasn't coming back. He hated her thinking that he was going to leave her as well, because he'd spent half of the previous night tossing and turning, wondering whether he really was capable of doing what Hallie had done.

It was almost nine o'clock when an exhausted pair of the Fantastic Four returned to the Baxter Building. Usually, when it came to matters such as this, Johnny would spend the entire journey home complaining that he could have been at a party he'd wanted to go to, or he could have watched that show he hadn't wanted to miss, but this time around, all he could think about was that he could have avoided putting the fear of further absence into Jessica's head. It was completely unnecessary for her to think that he could have been leaving her, because he hadn't really needed to leave in the first place.

He'd wanted to go and see Jessica, to let her know that he was back, just so that she was sure that he wasn't leaving her. He had smirked in the elevator as he realised that Sue would have given him that proud smile if he admitted that he was actually wanting to get home to see the daughter he had known for just under two days now.

However, the scenario in his head had played out very differently. She hadn't been pleased to see him, because he hadn't realised at first how late it was, and the fact that it was almost nine o'clock meant that she had already gone to bed. He was disappointed. He knew that emotion straight away, unlike the indescribable one from last night. He'd felt disappointed before. He'd felt his heart sink when he'd gotten his hopes up for nothing.

So, he had stayed in the doorway to her bedroom. The door was always open, with the hall light on because she was, after all, a child, and they didn't exactly have a night-light stowed away in the drawer somewhere. It had already been added to the list of things that they needed to buy for her, though, thanks to Sue. He watched her silently, finding a comfort in the gentle rising and falling of her chest.

"You're back."

The gentle voice, just above a whisper, came in the form of Sue, who had just appeared at his side. It seemed Jessica wasn't the only one feeling sleepy. She had a pair of pyjamas on beneath her thick bathrobe.

"Hey." He replied, keeping his voice as low as she did, before turning back to Jessica's sleeping form. "She okay?"

"She was fine." Sue assured him. "Missed you, though." He looked up at her for a moment, a somewhat amused look on his face. "She tried to stay up and wait for you, because she wanted you to put her to bed."

"How long ago did she fall asleep?" He asked.

"About an hour ago." Sue estimated.

Johnny smiled lightly, nodding as his eyes drifted to his sister's produting stomach, his attention only averted as she raised her hand to press it lightly, a strange expression of discomfort combined with happiness crossing her face. "How's my nephew today?" He asked her.

"He's very active." She told him, a peaceful smile on her face. Johnny nodded. She'd told him a few days ago that she was starting to feel him moving around more now, usually just to kick her bladder into a new shape, but both her and Reed were anxiously awaiting the moment that their son first kicked. "You okay?" Sue asked, when she realised that her brother's eyes had drifted back to Jessica with a sad expression.

"Yeah." He confirmed. "Just...thinking."

"What about?"

"Hallie." He said, not even skirting around the issue.

Sue leaned against the doorframe slightly. "She was scared, Johnny." She told him in a quiet voice. "It was fight or flight, and she chose flight."

He looked at her for a moment, his expression unreadable except for the betrayal in his eyes. "I can't believe you're defending her." He said quietly.

"I'm not defending her." She replied quickly.

Johnny sighed, rubbing his hands over his eyes for a moment. The exhaustion coupled with the stress was getting to him. "Sorry." He told her, raising his head again. "I didn't mean to snap at you like that."

Sue looked at him sympathetically. "What she did was wrong, Johnny. I know that, and somewhere down the line, she'll know that too." She explained. "But you have to remember that she was a scared mother who was afraid for her child."

"She was afraid _of _her child." Johnny corrected.

"It's done now, and we can't go back and change it." She pointed out. "You have to decide what you want now."

He shook his head, waiting to see Jessica's chest rise and fall once before answering. "I don't know what I want." He muttered after a moment. He had ideas of what he had planned his life to be, which generally included being eighty years old and still out on the ski slopes and flying through the air, but in the past few days, all of those plans had deserted him, leaving him with nothing except more items on the list of abandoned dreams.

"Do you want Jessica to go into care?"

The question was so abrupt, that he wasn't sure he'd heard her right to start with. "What?"

Sue stared him out. "That's what will happen if you don't want her to stay here." She explained. "There's nowhere else for her to go."

"I don't want her to be taken into care." He said quickly, remembering the guilt that was still hanging over him in the same gripping way in which Jessica had clung to his leg earlier. "She's my kid. I know that. Man, I know that."

"Then, what is it?" Sue asked him.

Johnny went to answer, inhaling deeply, but stopped, shaking his head. "I'm just...scared of what _I_ might do." He revealed.

"What do you mean?" Sue frowned.

"Hallie wanted this kid, and she upped and left the minute things got tough." Johnny reminded her. "As soon as something happened that she couldn't handle, she abandoned her kid without a second though."

"Johnny-"

"What happenes when things get tough for me?" He asked, a vulnerability which Sue wasn't used to hearing from him creeping into his voice and taking hold. "What happens when I can't cope on a bad day? I'm not a bad person, Sue, but neither was she! Hallie was always the better person, because she knew right from wrong, and she always knew what to do when I was doing something stupid and I messed up." He sighed heavily. "I can't help wondering what I'm capable of doing, when Hallie was capable of doing this."

"Things are never going to be tougher than they are now." Sue assured him, trying to point out something of a light at the end of the tunnel.

"It's only been a day." He compromised.

"And you haven't run away so far."

"I know, but--"

"But what, Johnny?" She cut him off. "I know you're not taking this easily, but you're still taking it. You've already shown that you've got what it takes, so don't doubt yourself."

He sighed again, shaking his head. Sue was right. She always was. That's what made her Sue. "So, what do I do now?" He asked, shrugging as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of the jeans he had changed into.

"You have a daughter now, and you have to realise that she's not going anywhere." Sue said, joining him in watching the sleeping child. "She's alone, and she's scared, so I suggest that you fight for her. She might fight against you, and everything you try to do, but you have to be gently, and patient, and take it slowly."

He smirked at her, watching her out of the corner of her eye. "That what you used to do with me?"

She laughed lightly. "Someone had to."

Reed came up on Sue's other side, having only heard the tail end of the conversation. "Hey." He said simply, keeping his voice low when he realised that Jessica was sleeping steadily still.

"Hey, hon." Sue smiled simply, welcoming the kiss on the cheek that she recieved from her husband.

"That movie you wanted to watch is just starting." He explained.

"Okay." She smiled, and then turned to her brother. "Night, Johnny."

"Night." He replied simply.

"I'll join you in a minute." Reed told her, remaining behind as Sue returned to the living room, leaving the two men outside the child's room. "How'd it go today?" He asked.

Johnny rolled his eyes. "_Complete_ waste of time. Not as bad as they made it out to be." He explained.

"Ah." Reed said simply. "Jessica okay?" He asked, when he realised how intently Johnny was watching his daughter.

Johnny nodded. "She was already in bed when I got back."

Reed watched him for a moment, and then asked, curiously: "I've noticed, whenever Sue recommends something, you always ask if she used to do it with you."

"Yeah." Johnny said.

"Why is that?"

Johnny smiled, almost amused at the question. "One of the last things that Hallie said to me was that everything Jessica did, reminded her of me. _Everything_." He explained, turning away from the bedroom and facing Reed head on. "So, I figure that Sue's the reason I turned out how I am after everything that happened, so maybe if I do what she did with me, then this kid will turn out okay too."

Reed smiled, nodding. "I never thought of it that way. It's good logic."

Johnny tapped the side of his head. "See, I've got a brain in here somewhere."

Reed laughed lighty. "Are you coming to watch the movie?" He asked.

Johnny shook his head. "Nah, not if it's one that Sue likes." He said, screwing up his face in distaste. "I'll probably hate it."

Reed nodded. "Well, if you're hungry, she saved you some dinner." He explained. "It's in the fridge."

"Great."

Johnny spent another moment watching Jessica after Reed left, and then he turned and walked towards the kitchen.

---------------------

In the middle of the night, Johnny awoke. He wasn't sure what had woke him up, he was only aware of a silence, followed by a shuffling by his door, and then the tiny padding of feet by the side of his bed. At the moment, he was still tangled in his bedclothes, and he untangled himself enough to allow him to move a little.

"Daddy?"

"Wha?" He asked.

"_Daddy_."

The second call came from a shaky whisper. Only it wasn't just any whisper. It was Jessica's. That child-whisper which wasn't actually quiet, but rather just sounded like it could have been a whisper.

Johnny opened his eyes this time, raising his head from the pillow which was a lot more crooked then when he had first lay his head down. Jessica was standing by the side of his bed, the strange looking doll in one hand, and the other rubbing at one of her eyes. She looked as if she were still half-asleep.

"Jessie?" He asked, sitting up as he tried to wake himself up more. As he sat up, he caught sight of his watch on the bedside table, showing him that the time was only 01.42. "It's the middle of the night, kid, what are you doing out of bed?" He asked her.

"Had a dream." She explained, playing with the bottom hemline of her pyjama top now that she had stopped rubbing her eye. "It was scary."

He wasn't sure how to comfort children. Mind you, there was a lot of things that he didn't know how to do with children, this just being one of them. He had come to realise though, that maybe it was best to act off of intuition. She had come to him because she was scared, so he had to do something about that. Now that he was more awake, he noticed that there were tears on her face, starting to dry on her tiny cheeks. He frowned at the sight. "You still scared?" He asked her.

Jessica nodded simply, and there was a brief silence, whether neither of them moved or spoke. Johnny tried to figure out what to do. Should he send her back to bed, telling her that it was just a dream and there was nothing to be scared of? Or should he stay up with her, making her feel better until she went back to sleep? After a short moment, he decided upon the latter, and pulled back the duvet cover, inviting her onto the mattress beside him.

"Come on, kid." He said, waiting until she had curled up on the bed beside him, clutching at her doll whilst she got as close to him as she could, until he spoke again. "What was your dream about?"

She looked up at him with those large blue eyes. Hallie's eyes. Eyes that were captivating, and honest. He'd wondered, as a emotionally confused teenager, whether he'd ever see that colour ever again, and he found it ironic that he had done, only in his daughter's eyes rather than Hallie's. "Monsters." She said simply. "Monsters and Mommy."

"There's no such thing as monsters." He said on impulse, even though memories of Victor von Doom proved otherwise. Wow, he realised a moment later. That sounded very parental.

"But there is such thing as Mommy." She told him in a quiet tone.

"Yeah, but your Mom's not a monster." He pointed out.

Jessica looked up at him, a strange expression on her face. "I heard Uncle Ben say that she was 'cause she left me behind." She told him.

Great, she's as good at eavesdropping as I am, Johnny thought to himself. "He didn't mean it like that." He covered up, before she got an image of Hallie with purple horns and a forked tail in her head.

"Was he _lying_?" She asked, still in the idyllic age where whatever adults told you was the truth.

"No, he wasn't lying." Johnny said. "He was just wrong. He said it because that's what she reminds him of, and if she did something bad, like leaving you behind, then she'd remind him of monsters."

"And if she did something nice, she'd remind him of something nice?" Jessica slowly realised.

He nodded. "That's right. But just because she makes Uncle Ben think of monsters, that doesn't mean that monsters are real." He covered, remembering the purpose of allowing her to stay in his bed.

"So, there's no monsters under your bed too?" She asked him warily.

"There's no monsters under my bed." He assured her.

"Promise?"

Ben's comment about it being easier to promise, earlier that day, came flooding back to him, and he nodded firmly. "I promise."

"What if you can't see them?" She asked him. "What if they turn invisible like Auntie Sue and they're just hiding?"

"Auntie Sue's the only one who can turn invisible." He told her. "And they're not hiding, because most things you can see, but some things you can't. But monsters aren't real anyway, and even if they were, which they're _not_, you'd be able to see them."

Jessica looked confused, but it wasn't because of his explanation. "Why can't you see some things?" She asked, picking him up on the start of his explanation.

"Umm..." She had him stuck there. "Some things you just can't see." He told her. "Not with your eyes."

"What else is there?" She asked him. "I've only got my eyes to see with."

"Some things you see with your eyes." He told her. "But other things you can only see with your heart." _Oh man, I sound like Sue. Shoot me now. Just...put me out of my misery. One day with this kid and I'm turning into my damn sister._

Jessica scrunched her face up. "I don't get it." She told him. "Has your heart got eyes?"

"No, it just sees things in it's own special way." He told her. "Like your Mom. You love her, right?"

"Yeah." She said softly. He tried not to detest that thought.

"That's something that everyone else can see with their eyes, but when _you_ see it, you see if with your heart." He explained, shocked at how much sense he was making for nearly two a.m.

"Why?"

"Because love is a very special thing." He told her. "People can see when you love someone, and they can see how much you love them, but when you know that you love them, no one else can see it like you can." _Yup, that's got Sue written all over it. Maybe she said it once, and I've just subconsciously remembered it. Maybe this kid's just turning me into a softie._

Jessica sighed. "I still don't get it." She told him.

"You will one day." He assured her. "When you're older."

"I _am_ older." She insisted. "I'm three now. I'm a big girl."

"A _bigger_ girl, then." He told her. "Now, come on, it's late." He said. "You should go back to sleep."

Not arguing, Jessica curled up against him, her little head resting against his chest. The sound of his heartbeat close to her ear comforted her, lulling her back towards the sleep which had been so rudely interrupted by the monsters.

"Daddy?" She whispered, so close to sleep now.

"Yeah, kid?"

"You feel like home." She told him softly.

Instinctively, his arm fell around her, keeping her in place against him. His lips briefly touched the top of her head, and then he whispered, unheard by anyone; "So do you, kiddo."


	11. What Have You Done With My Brother?

Chapter Eleven:

The following morning, Sue was very pleased to suffer no morning sickness again. The stressful arrival of Jessica had spurred it on, but since everything hadn't been reliant on her, she found that the long mornings of dashing to and from the bathroom had once again diminished into the occassional passing wave of nausea, which she had learnt to cope with. However, when she did awake, it was still very early, and she no longer had the desire to fall back asleep. She was awful like that; never able to fall back asleep once she had woken up. It was why lie-ins hadn't existed for her since her teenage years.

Beside her, Reed slept on, oblivious to his wife lying awake beside him. Then again, when Reed slept, a bomb could go off right next to him and he probably wouldn't have woken up. It wasn't until he started sharing a bed with Sue that he had started sleeping every night. Sue had quickly gotten her then husband-to-be out of his unnatural routine of only collapsing for sleep when it was of the absolute essence, and she knew that this was usually on the couch than the bed. Now, however, he slept all night, every night. Unless Sue was having a bad night, and spent most of the midnight hours tossing and turning beneath the blankets, he was oblivious to all around him once sleep had taken him.

Sue smiled, as the fleeting that she felt in her stomach didn't send her running to the bathroom. This was a much more enlightening feeling, that of her child moving inside of her. She couldn't wait to properly feel her baby kicking inside of her. Ever since she had fallen pregnant, she found herself much more at peace with herself, even though she always thought that was just something pregnant women said because they were happy. When Johnny wound her up, she found herself a lot more inclined to just let the bickering lie, although that might have been because of what her doctor had told her about her stress levels being potential dangerous to the baby. They'd waited too long for anything to compromise the life they had created. She smiled even more as she imagined what her mornings would be like in a few months time; a perfect image of Reed holding their son, pacing up and down slowly in his usual manner as he tried to calm a crying baby, flooded her mind.

The fleeting sensation was quickly replaced by one of hunger, something she had come to expect, and she suspected that the slight movement she felt was her unborn son demanding his breakfast. She slowly moved out from underneath Reed's arm, which had stretched around her, and as soon as she had moved, it sprung back into it's usual shape and position, unknown to him. Wrapping her robe around her, securing the knot over her stomach as usual, she left the bedroom, and crept towards the kitchen, not wanting to wake anyone up.

However, what greeted her in the kitchen took her breath away, to say the least.

Over at the kitchen counter, Johnny was standing with his back to her, leaning over a frying pan containing several rashers of bacon, and another which was currently frying two eggs. Beside him, standing on a chair and awkwardly buttering toast, was Jess. Both of them were already fully dressed, Jessica in a demin dress with patterned tights and a short-sleeved white shirt underneath, and Johnny in a plain black t-shirt and jeans. The radio was on in the corner, quietly playing one of Johnny's 80's rock CD's, and the sound of Bon Jovi's 'Living on a Prayer' quietly provided a background to the laughter which came from the pair.

Sue stood there for a moment, shocked into a statue-like position in the entrance. Johnny was singing along with certain lines of the music, making Jessica giggle wildly as she bopped up and down on the chair, completely out of time to the music but creating an image of herself which reminded Sue of a time where Johnny had climbed on the dining room table as a five-year-old and performed his first air guitar concert to a Guns N Roses album. Oh, how their mother and her book club had laughed.

"Johnny." She managed to say eventually, her senses coming back to her as she realised that she really wasn't dreaming. "What are you _doing_ in here?"

Johnny turned to her, and for some reason, she expected him to be wearing a frilly apron, and she was very glad that he wasn't. "I'm sorry." He told her, confusion on his face. "It must be a shock to see me in the place that I live."

"You're up early." She commented, coming further into the kitchen and sitting down at the head of the table, still watching her brother and neice curiously.

"That's _her_ fault." Johnny said, waving a spatula in Jessica's direction.

Jessica, in turn, turned around and smiled at Sue. _Oh my God...he's even brushed her hair, _she realised. "Morning, Auntie Sue." She grinned sweetle.

"Morning, sweetheart." She smiled back, before the little girl returned to her toast-buttering mission. "She get you up early?" She asked Johnny.

Johnny nodded, flipping over one of the bacon rashers. "She was trying to sneak out and watch TV, but she got caught."

Sue frowned curiously. "You heard her get up from all the way in your room?" She asked him.

Johnny shook his head, turning around, and seeing that Jessica had finished her toast. In response, he lifted her under the arms and placed her down on one of the chairs beside Sue. "I slept in Daddy's bed last night." Jessica told Sue.

"You did?" She asked.

Johnny came back over, setting down a plate of the successfully buttered toast before his daughter along with a glass of orange juice. "Someone had a bad dream, didn't we?" He said, softly ruffling Jessica's hair in a way which made her giggle again.

Sue smiled softly. "I remember Dad catching _you_ bright and early." She remembered.

"Really?" Johnny asked, returning to the eggs and bacon still frying.

She nodded. "You always wanted to get your bike around to the park before Jamie across the street." She explained. "So Dad would find you down in the garage early in the morning, trying to get your bike out on your own, and always getting tangled up in all sorts."

Johnny laughed lightly. "Well, would you look at that, kiddo." He said to Jessica. "I guess we've both got a habit of getting caught." Surprisingly, without being asked, Johnny then set down a glass of orange juice before Sue, who glanced up at him in surprise. "You feeling alright this morning?" He asked.

"Much better, thanks." She told him, slightly dazed.

"You eaten?" He asked, starting to serve up the eggs which had finished.

She eyed him suspiciously, but laughed anyway. "You think I'd be up earlier than _this_ to eat?" She challenged him daringly.

He laughed to himself. "Well, you pregnant women and your craving at all hours of the night..." He teased.

"Reed's meant to complain about that, not you." She pointed out to him.

"I'm not complaining." He insisted, placing down a plate of breakfast before his elder sister. "There you go. There's more than enough for everyone."

That did it for Sue. She really looked at him suspiciously. "Okay, who are _you_, and what have you done with my _brother_?" She asked him. The getting up early with his daughter was one thing, but the orange juice, and the dancing in the kitchen, and the music and the breakfast? Either Johnny was making New Years resolutions in May, or he was genuinely turning over a new leaf.

Johnny sighed, and leaned against the vacant chair on Jessica's other side. "Listen, Sue..." He started to explain. "The last few days have been pretty..._crazy_."

"Yeah, they have." She agreed.

"Yeah." He nodded. "But I just wanted to...you know...say how much it means to me that I've got you on my side for this. I wanted to say...uh...that is...um..." He rubbed the back of his neck with one arm, awkwardly.

Jessica looked up at him, tearing a peice of toast into two smaller peices. "It's only _words_, Daddy. Just say them."

They both laughed lightly, and Johnny looked back at Sue. "Thanks for helping me, Susie." He said softly, but loud enough for her to hear.

Sue smiled at her brother. "You're welcome, Johnny."

"Daddy?" Jessica asked, as Johnny sat down with his own breakfast, beside Sue and opposite Jessica.

"Yeah?"

"Can we go to the park today?"

Johnny seemed to freeze up. The conversation they'd had yesterday morning rose up in his mind. He'd been trying to avoid taking her outside, because of what it would mean, but this was the third day she'd been here, and naturally, she was getting bored in the house. She was a kid, and she wanted to be outside in the summer air playing, he understood that, but there were reporters around. It wasn't that he was ashamed to say that he had a daughter, but it wasn't fair on Jessica to be cast into the public eye as they had been four years ago. There had been enough news coverage when Sue had first been photographed with her baby bump, coincidently buying baby clothes with Reed at the time, and she had been on the front page of every paper. Even science journals were printing the pictures, speculating whether or not the baby would inherit any genes from her and Reed that would make it as 'fantastic' as they were. Clearly Jessica proved that theory, but he still didn't want his daughter on the front page. It wasn't fair on her.

The park, on a summers day like that day, was going to be packed full of people out with their children. These people would be on family outings. These people would want to capture the memories of a beautiful day out with their children. These people would have cameras, and photographs, and when they realised that the Human Torch was there, there would be many, many photographs - photographs which would have Jessica in them. He needed somewhere without cameras...somewhere that could be as good as outside without being too much in the public eye...somewhere like...

"I'll tell you what," Johnny suggested. "Your Mom teach you to swim yet?" Jessica nodded enthusiastically, and Sue looked at him curiously. "How about we go swimming?"

"YEAH!" She cried out happily, as soon as the idea had left his mouth. "Can we go on the slide?" She asked.

"We can go on the slide." He confirmed.

"And in the deep end?" Johnny looked up from his breakfast, and raied a challenging eyebrow at her. "I'll wear my arm-bands." She promised.

"Okay, then." He nodded.

Jessica turned to Sue. "Auntie Sue, you're coming swimming too, right?"

Sue looked and Johnny and then nodded. "Sure, honey."

She nodded in return. "Good. Uncle Reed will like that."

"Will he?" She asked curiously.

"Yeah." Jessica said simply. "'Cause I heard Daddy tell Uncle Ben yesterday that Uncle Reed likes summer 'cause he'd do _anythin'_ to see you in skimpy clothes."

Sue choked a little on her orange juice, and Johnny looked away innocently, immediately busying himself with clearing up after Jessica's breakfast.

--------

Ben and Alicia weren't exactly fans of swimming pools, which had been a happy coincidence when they decided to go and visit Alicia's art studio instead so that she could work on an idea. Reed and Sue, however, had joined Johnny and Jessica in visiting the swimming pool in the nearby leisure complex. Hallie, thankfully, had remembered to pack Jessica's swimming gear in the two bags she had arrived with.

Johnny had been proud of his idea to go swimming. It was great exercise, which made up for the fact that he hadn't exactly been doing much, other than moping around the Baxter, for a while. It was cheap. It was near to home, which meant it was easy to get there without anyone noticing them. The best part about his plan, however, was that no one would notice Jessica. Of course, a few people might recognise that it was the Human Torch playing games with a little girl in the pool - and, of course, calling him 'Daddy' - but there wouldn't be any newspaper pictures. That had been the real genius of the plan, because he knew that you couldn't take photographs in the pool area because of all the strange goings on that happened these days with indecent photos of kids.

They had a long morning in the pool, in which Johnny had, unfortunately, discovered that he had been right about what he had teasingly told Ben yesterday. Reed's face said it all when he saw Sue wearing her bikini, which proudly showed off her pregnant stomach. Jessica had a small lilac one-peice, which, when they first found it, they had all thought that it wouldn't fit her, but it proved to be rather stretchy.

Reed and Sue stuck mainly to the shallows, where Sue was more than happy to just float around without straining herself too much, while Johnny and Jessica went further down into the pool. They didn't go right into the deep end, because Johnny wasn't happy about her being in such deep water, even if the arm-inflatables were keeping her well afloat on the water.

Johnny found himself feeling rather paranoid, and kept checking around them to see if anyone was casting him strange looks. Thankfully, they seemed to be okay. Reed and Sue were getting the occassional glance, as there was no mistaking them with Sue's pregnancy, but clearly no one seemed to suspect that the Human Torch had a three-year-old with him, and gave him the benefit of the doubt. However, one time when he glanced around, he was cut off by Jessica's cry.

"_Daddy, look at me_!" She cried from the edge of the pool, where toddled forward and then jumped in off the edge. Johnny panicked for a moment, because beforehand, he had been catching Jessica before anything other than her feet hit the water, but this time there was no chance to. However, he had forgotten the fact that the inflatables on her arms prevented her from going underwater.

They did, though, send out a spray wave of water which completely engulfed Johnny, soaking his face.

Jessica giggled. "Sorry, Daddy." She told him, paddling towards him. Her laughted told him that she clearly wasn't sorry at all, but rather amused.

The chlorine stung at his eyes, but he knew that if he rubbed them now, he would make them sore later, so he let the water drip off his eyelashes and merge with the rest of the water on his face. He was about to speak when a familiar laughter attracted his attention, and he turned to see Sue and Reed beside themselves with laughter at what had just happened. He caught Sue's gaze, and gave her a look which told her that she was going to back for laughing, but she simply carried on laughing it up.

Jessica swam around and clambered onto Johnny's back, but it felt lighter than air because of the water taking away her weight. Her arms looped around his neck, and Johnny laughed. "Look at you," He said holding one of her hands and showing her her fingers. "You're all wrinkly."

"So are you." She laughed, keeping hold of one of his fingers.

She stayed around his neck as they swam over to Reed and Sue, and when they reached the couple, she swam the last few feet herself. "Auntie Sue, Uncle Reed! Did you see me jump in all by myself?" She asked.

"Sure did." Sue smiled.

"That was a pretty high jump as well." Reed added.

"Yeah." Jessica smiled proudly. "I splashed Daddy."

Sue looked between her family, knowing that they had been in the pool for almost three hours now. "How about we head up to the resturant for some lunch?" She suggested, convinced that all of them had worked up appetites, and she wasn't wrong.

After some mild coaxing for Jessica, they had all gotten out of the pool. The resturant wasn't that full, as they had missed the lunchtime rush, but out of the window, Jessica had caught sight of the park, and once she had seen it, she wanted to go there. There had been much chanting, and much debating in Johnny's head. However, there had been only two other children in the park at the time, so he felt that it was safe enough to go tehre.

Sue and Reed chose a bench on the edge of the park, watching as Johnny and Jessica wore themselves out. He pushed her on a swing and they raced around the park. He held her up on his shoulders so that she could do the monkey bars, and he caught her when she reached the bottom of the slide. Finally, Johnny had found someone he could release his inner child on without annoying them. Neither of them stopped smiling the entire time.

Sue leaned her head on Reed's shoulder. "They're going to sleep well tonight." She joked.

It was good to see Johnny enjoying himself in a way which didn't involve drinking and parties. Sue had to say that she was honestly happy to see her brother like this, so playful and carefree as he chased his daughter around the park, both of them shouting and laughing happily now that the park was completely deserted. The married couple who watched them smiled, both knowing that soon, it would be them playing in the park with their child.

----

It was around four in the afternoon when they finally made it back to the Baxter. Jessica had been without a nap up until then, and she was completely exhausted. As they walked the single block back to the Baxter building, she allowed Johnny to carry her through the crowds, her eyes drooping heavily until eventually, she fell asleep with her head on his shoulder. She didn't even stir until Johnny took her into her bedroom and lay her down on the bed.

"Daddy?" She murmered.

"Hey, kiddo." He whispered.

"Tired." She mumbled.

"Time for some sleep then." He suggested, and Jessica nodded wearily. Yesterday, Sue had changed her into something more comfortable to sleep in for her nap, but it would be to hard to get a sleepy, sluggish Jessica out of the denim dress. So, he simply took off her shoes, and settled her in the bed, watching as she instantly curled up on her side. The pale brown hair which curled lightly around her features dell across her face, and Johnny subconsciously swept them back as she got comfortable.

"Sleep tight, kiddo." He whispered, kissing the top of her head as he had done the night before after she had crept into his room.


	12. It's Our Thing, and I Don't Want A Bath

**Thank you so much for all your reviews - your support means so much to me! Emmz, thnk u for helping me with the cuteness, and for letting me bug u so much with this story - u know I luv ya loads! To those of you who have enquired about a romance between Johnny and another character, I'm afraid that won't be included in this story, as this is focused on Johnny as a parent, not as a lover. I know that you'd all like to see different things, and I'm trying my best to work them in, because please bare in mind that I have already got a scripted draft for the entire story now, so I have to find a place to put it where it will work. There's going to be some interaction with Sue and Jessica, and yes, those of you who wanted some down time after the big cute hype to prove that this isn't a perfect work - you shall not be disappointed. However, for this chapter, I highly suggest that you seek out the song playing at the end. It's called 'Carry On My Wayward Son' by Kansas. **

Chapter Twelve: It's Our Thing, and I Don't Want A Bath Please

When Jessica woke from her nap, dinner was just about ready, so everyone piled into the kitchen. Ben and Alicia were back from her studio, so it was crowded around the table, even though it comfortably fit the six of them. Jessica was sat at the head of the table this time, with Johnny on one side, and Sue on her other. Sue, however, spent most of dinner time looking at Jessica, and eventually, spotted what had grabbed her attention to start with. A small twig in her hair.

"You need a bath." She announced.

Jessica dropped her fork onto her plate with a loud clatter, and everyone stared the pair, hearing Sue's words. Jessica looked at her, wide eyed and horrified. "_No_!" She insisted. "No, I'm clean!"

Ben chuckled to himself from the opposite end of the table. "Yeah, just like Johnny."

Johnny turned away from the scene at hand and glared at him. "Hey, I bathe!"

"Occasionally." Ben smirked.

"I'm all clean!" Jessica insisted, rubbing her face, and then holding out her hands so that Sue could see the lack of dirt on them. "See!"

Sue shook her head. "No, you need a bath."

"_Please_, Auntie Sue! Don't make me have a bath!" She pleaded.

"Jessica, you're filthy." She pointed out. "You've got half the park in your hair." That, of course, and she hadn't been bathed once since arriving with them.

Jessica turned to face Johnny, looking at him for help. "Daddy?"

Johnny shrugged, seeing the amount of dirt in her hair that he hadn't spotted before. "Sorry, firefly, Auntie Sue's right." He told her.

"_Firefly_?" Ben questioned as Jessica pouted.

"Shut up." Johnny said calmly. "It's our thing, right, Jessie?"

"Yeah." Jessica backed him up. "It's our _thing_, and I don't want a bath, _please_." She said.

So, Johnny tried the only thing that he could think of. Bribery. "Tell you what, if you're good and you have your bath without a fuss, we'll do something fun afterwards." He told her.

She pondered this. "Something really fun?"

He nodded. "Whatever you want."

She screwed up her face in concentration, and then picked up her fork again. "Okay...I'll have a bath."

--------

One thing that Johnny hadn't realised, when he had bribed his daughter into having a bath, was that he was also going to be marched into the bathroom. Of course, with her pregnant stomach, Sue couldn't lean over the tub to wash her hair for her, and the others all backed Sue up by saying that Johnny had done well that day, and that he shouldn't ruin it by shunning off bathtime onto someone else. However, when he was fetching the shampoo and hair conditioner from the cupboard, he found the thing that would make the whole ordeal easier for the both of them.

Sue's bubble bath.

Okay, so it was expensive, and a Christmas present from Reed because it smelt like something that Sue liked the smell of, but a lot of bubbles would keep Jessica occupied long enough for Johnny to wash her hair. So, he drizzled some into the tub, which was currently a quater full, and when it didn't immediately bubble up, he abandoned drizzling, and squeezed the bottle alongside the running tap. A massive lump of bubble bath hit the water, and gradually, as it started foaming up, he realised that he'd put way too many bubbles in.

Then, when the water was finished running, and at what he could only guess was at the right temperature, he went back into the family room to call for Jessica. "Jessie, bath's ready!" He called to her. Inside, he was dreading it, even though he tried to sound indifferent. He had a clear memory of his mother dragging him into a bath, and her laughing while she threatened to put him in wearing his clothes if he didn't get in himself. She had done it as well.

Surprisingly though, remembering her promise of something fun afterwards, Jessica edged off the couch, and followed Johnny into the bathroom. Johnny distinctly heard a 'good luck' from Sue before he closed the bathroom door.

"Jeez, kid, you're filthy."

Having been bundled into the bath, and found that the nice smelling bubbles rose right up to her neck, Jessica sat still for a moment. Then, she smiled, and brought up her hands, clapping them into the bubbles, and laughing when they went spraying into all different directions. Johnny allowed her a while to just play with the bubbles, knowing that once the shampoo got into the water, that it would make them slowly disappear. After all, this was one of the joys of being a kid. If you had to have a bath, you made sure it was filled to the rim with bubbles and you splashed the hell out of them.

Johnny crouched beside the bathtub on his knees, joining her in playing with the bubbles. He could remember his own childhood so vividly now that Jessica was around. He remembered the day that he had first taken his own bath, without his mother, and how he hadn't been able to get the bubbles as frothy as she could make them. He rememebered Sue being shut away in the bathroom for hours once, in the bath, because she had come home with ink in her hair after her first day at elementary school, and they were dreading that it might have been permanent.

It wasn't long before Johnny ended up as soaked as Jessica was, and half of the bath now seemed to be soaked up in the mat that he was leaning on. On the other side of the door, in the living room, the others all heard the laughter coming from the other side of the door. They all smiled, not even daring to interrupt whatever was going on in the bathroom that had them both so amused.

"I like the bubbles." Jessica giggled.

"I can tell." Johnny laughed. "You're getting them everywhere."

After the bubbles began to fade, however, Jessica had sat obediently still whilst Johnny washed her hair. However, the last large clump of bubbles remaining was, at this point, piled onto Johnny's head in an attempt to give him a bubble wig.

"I remember when I used to go to the park with my Dad." Johnny told her, rubbing the shampoo into her hair as gently as he could so that he didn't pull it. Jessica had her head tipped right back, which she had done without being asked, knowing that she didn't want the shampoo to run into her eyes. "I used to run over to my friends when we got there, and we'd go and climb in all the trees."

"Really high?" Jessica asked, hanging onto his every word.

"You bet I did." He grinned. "Once, I climbed _so_ high that my Dad had to come and get me down because I got stuck."

Jessica looked at him with wide eyes. "Did you get in trouble?" She asked him.

He nodded. "Dad told me off, but my Mom laughed, and said that I was too adventurous for my own good." He remembered.

She screwed her face up. "What does adventureous mean?" She asked.

"It means that you do thinks that other people aren't brave enough to do, because you think it's fun." He explained.

"Like making breakfast fire?" She laughed.

"Yeah, I guess so." He said, after a moment's hesitation. In her sense, it wasn't as much adventurous as dangerous, but when it came to his experience with fire, he figured that jumping off of buildings and setting yourself aflame was adventureous enough.

She looked thoughtful for a moment. "I want to climb trees too."

"One day, you will." Johnny told her. "When you get bigger."

"Can you teach me how?" She asked him, her eyes glittering.

He nodded. "Yeah, I'll show you how."

"And if we get stuck, will Uncle Reed come and get us down?"

Johnny smirked at this. "I'm not sure he'll be able to." He explained. "You see, Uncle Reed isn't very good at climbing trees." He said, ignoring the fact that he could have easily stretched for it. However, Jessica laughed, and splashed up some more bubbles. "Okay." He said, gathering an empty cup of water to rinse her hair with. "Head back."

-----

About half an hour later, the bathroom door opened, and everyone looked up expectantly. Jessica appeared first, wearing nothing besides the thick warm towel which covered everything except her feet. She giggled, and then waited for Johnny, who emerged from the room looking as if he had just dived into a lake.

"You look um..." Sue began, trying not to laugh.

"You take a bath too, kid?" Ben teased.

Jessica grinned. "I like the bubbles."

"That's why you're soaking wet?" Sue asked.

Johnny shrugged. "You heard the kid. She likes the bubbles." He said simply. Then, he turned and made a fake roaring sound, which set Jessica running off, screaming and laughing wildly towards her bedroom while Johnny chased her.

When they disappeared, they all smiled. "Well," Reed said. "_There's_ something you don't see every day."

Sue smiled contently, leaning back against him in the position she had been in before. "Maybe it will now." She smiled.

---------------------

Now dressed in her pyjamas, and her almost-dried hair curling on her shoulders, Jessica sat on the kitchen table while Johnny sat in front of her. "Right then, firefly, what's this fun thing you want to do?" He asked her.

"Music." She decided, having enjoyed the music in the kitchen that morning, and Johnny was pleased to learn that his daughter enjoyed eighties rock as much as he did. Even though it was slightly before his time as well, he loved listening to it.

"Music?"

"I want you to play some music."

Over at the sink, Reed groaned whilst getting a glass of water. "Oh, here we go..." he mumbled.

Johnny looked over, rolling his eyes. "Don't start."

Reed turned to face him. "Last time you got your guitar out, we didn't get any sleep all night." He pointed out.

Jessica looked up at Reed with puppy dog eyes. "_Please_, Uncle Reed, can Daddy play me some music?" She asked him.

"Well..."

"C'mon man." Johnny told him, matching Jessica's look. "How can you say no to that face?"

Reed raised an eyebrow. "The same way _you_ can."

"Please..." Jessica repeated, this time fluttering her eyelashes, which made them both stop.

That was a new development.

One that Johnny defiantely hadn't been responsible for.

Johnny stood up, leaving the kitchen with Reed watching Jessica at the table, and going into the lounge area. "_SUE! ALICIA_!"

"What?" They both asked simultaneously from the couch, where they were sat talking.

"Alright." He said, stopping in front of them. "_One_ of you taught Jessie to do the puppy dog eyes." He said. "Which of you was it?"

"It wasn't me." Alicia shrugged.

"Not me." Sue said innocently.

"I know it's one of you." He said, glaring in particular at Sue. "This is some _girl _kind of thing."

"How do you know that she doesn't already know it?" Sue challenged him.

He frowned. "I just _know_." He decided.

At that moment, Jessica ran over and latched herself onto Johnny's legs again. "Daddy, Uncle Reed said _yes_!" She said excitedly.

"Yes to _what_?" Sue asked.

Johnny grinned, while Jess piped up from beneath him: "Daddy's gonna play some music."

"Oh no." Sue groaned.

"Not the guitar." Alicia murmered.

Johnny frowned at them. "There's nothing wrong with the guitar." He told them, before he and Jessica disappeared off to his bedroom.

"Oh, here we go..." Sue muttered, exactly as Reed had done a moment ago.

"No sleep tonight." Alicia finished.

----------

The guitar had been his eighteenth birthday present from his father, and was easily his most treasured possession, topping the ranks even above the many cars had owned. It was electric red, and recently, he had one of his friends decorate the side of it with some flames around the edge, just to add his trademark to it. He didn't play it that often anymore, but clearly, Jessica had spotted it in his bedroom that morning. He did occassionally take it out, however, for old times sake. He didn't exactly have a lot of time for playing music in between going to parties and saving the world, but tonight, after a very good day, he would make time.

He remembered his first band, back when he was fourteen. At eighteen, Sue was bringing home her friends, and he would be down in the garage with his drummer, Toby and his bass player, Nick, while he took care of lead guitar and lead vocals. Beside them, laughing away at how awful they sounded when Toby couldn't even really play the drums, was Hallie. It had really started out as a ploy to attract the attention of one of Sue's friends, Alison, who had, at the time, been dating a musician from college. Johnny had never met this guy, but he hated him on principle because he fancied Alison. As time went on, however, they got better, and they became what they thought was a 'proper' band. They called themselves 'Snakebite' after the drink that Toby had introduced them to at a party whic had resulted in a fifteen year old Johnny being grounded for three months, and also getting his stomach pumped a few hours prior to the grounding.

"Right, so what are we playing?" Johnny asked, as he stood by the side of his bed. Atop the bed, Jessica sat cross legged, watching happily while Johnny slipped the strap around his neck, and adjusted it so that it was level.

"Music." She smiled.

"I know that." He told her. "But what sort of music?"

"Good music."

Johnny sighed. Nothing ever went simply when you thought that it would. Then again, he realised that he was asking a three year old about different types of music, and mentally kicked himself when he realised that she probably didn't spent the little time of her youth shut in her bedroom listening to music like he had done. "Okay, what's your favourite song?" He asked her.

She shrugged. "I don't know."

Johnny raised his eyebrows. "You _don't have_ a favourite song?" He asked her.

"Nope." She shook her head.

Johnny mentally blasted Hallie for depriving his child of music. "Right," He decided. "How about I play _my_ favourite song, and then you tell me if you like it or not?" He asked her.

"Yeah!" She said.

It took Johnny a moment to tune, but eventually, he got the strings in order, and started on the intro to his favourite song. One thing he liked about this song in particular was the way that the tune flowed during the verses. It had been the first song that Snakebite had sung live, and as he remembered, they had _rocked_! It had been at a school concert, and while a lot of people enjoyed it, they didn't exactly recognise it as a rock classic, and thought that he had made up the song. Of course, he was welcome to that attention, but his music teacher had called him out on it.

_"Carry on my wayward son  
__There'll be peace when you are done  
__Lay your weary head to rest  
__Don't you cry no more_

_Once I rose above the noise and confusion  
__Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion  
__I was soaring even higher  
__But I flew too high _

_Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man  
__Though my mind could think I still was a mad man  
__I hear the voices when I'm dreaming  
__I can hear them say_

_Carry on my wayward son  
__There'll be peace when you are done  
__Lay your weary head to rest  
__Don't you cry no more_

_Masquerading as a man with a reason  
__My charade is the event of the season  
__And if I claim to be a wise man, well  
__It surely means that I don't know_

_On a stormy sea of moving emotion  
__Tossed about like I'm a ship on the ocean  
__I set a course for winds of fortune  
__But I hear the voices say_

_Carry on my wayward son  
__There'll be peace when you are done  
__Lay your weary head to rest  
__Don't you cry no more_

_No!  
__Carry on, you will always remember  
__Carry on, nothing equals the splendor  
__The center lights around your vanity  
__Bur surely heaven waits for you_

_Carry on my wayward son  
__There'll be peace when you are done  
__Lay your weary head to rest  
__Don't you cry (Don't you cry no more)"_

When he finished, he remembered how much the song applied to him. That was why it was his favourite song. He had first heard his mother listening to it in the kitchen, and when he would walk in and see here there, washing the dishes or doing the laundry, she would say to him _'carry on my wayward son'_. In reality, he still was her wayward son.

Jessica clapped her hands, approving the song, but as she did, Johnny had to dive and estinguish the embers which hit against the edge of his bedcovers. He was glad that he had specially designed covers which weren't affected by his flames anymore, because at first, he'd had a lot of cold nights without a blanket to sleep under.

"So, good or bad?" He asked her afterwards.

"Good!"

"You like my favourite song?" He grinned proudly.

"Yeah, but it can't be _your _favourite anymore." She decided.

He gave her a mock frown, putting the guitar aside and joining her on the bed. "Why not?"

"Because it's _my_ favourite." She decided.

"Oh, is it now?" He challenged.

"Yeah."

"Why's that?"

"'Cause I said so." She giggled, sounding exactly like her mother and his.

He raised his eyebrows at her, laughing. "Now, that doesn't work with me." He told her.

"Yeah it does." She laughed, cutting off with a wide yawn.

Johnny smiled as she finished yawning. "Well, looks like it's bedtime." He observed.

"Will you put me to bed tonight?" She asked in a tiny voice, as he had still been down at the bridge with Ben when she had gone to sleep the night before.

"Sure." He said, lifting her into a piggy back. "Let's go."

He carried her into her bedroom, and put her down on the bed. "Okay, all set?" He asked her, as she started to burrow under the covers in her usual ball shape.

She stopped suddenly, looking around her. "Where's Emma?" She asked.

He frowned for a moment. "Who's Emma?"

"My dolly." She told him. "_Emma_."

"Oh." He realised, remembering the strange doll she always had with her. "Did you leave her in my bed this morning?" He asked her.

"Maybe."

"I'll go check."

True enough, Emma was still half-hidden underneath one of his pillows back in his room. However, when he returned to Jessica's room to give her the doll, she was already sleeping. He smiled, crawling over the mattress a little, so that he could get to the corner where she always curled up, and placed Emma underneath the blankets beside her. He placed a kiss on her forehead, like he did the night before.

"Night, firefly."


	13. Auntie Sue Says

Chapter 13: Auntie Sue Says...

Finally, he found his jacket. He'd spent the past ten minutes searching his room for it, and clearly it had been his sister who had hung it by the door in one of her many attempts to keep the place tidy. It wasn't very often that these attempts worked, however, unless a pain-of-death rule accompanied it. Reed had gotten very tidy since he and Sue had been married, but Johnny supposed that was just the added domesticity that came from being a husband, rather than just the guy who sat in his lab all day drinking coffee. Ben had his difficulties, of course, being so large, but he had more co-ordination now, so that just left Johnny, who had the domestic habits of a teenager.

Jessica looked up at him as he walked through, prying her eyes away from the dolls she was playing with on the living room floor. She frowned when she saw him slipping on his leather jacket, and abandoned her dolls, leaving them on the ground as she padded over to her father, standing beside him.

"Daddy, where are you going?" She asked him in her inquisitive voice.

He looked down, not realising that she had finished her dinner already. "I've gotta go out for a bit." He told her vaguely.

She frowned harder. "But you went out the other day too." She pointed out.

"I know, kid." He told her, putting his hand on the top of her head and ruffling her brown hair. "But I have to."

"Can I come?" She asked hopefully.

"No." He said easily. He was getting better at saying 'no' to her now, even if it had taken a week for that to happen.

"Why not?" She whined.

"'Cause it's just for grown ups."

"I can be a grown up!"

Johnny sighed, looking down at the little girl. Seven days had passed since Hallie had left her in his life. It had been a long seven days, but when he thought about how far the two of them had come, it wasn't really that long. In fact, considering eight days ago he'd left the house and gone to a party, thinking about how he would probably be a party boy for life, it was a pretty quick turn around.

He smiled at his little girl, ruffling her hair for a moment. She looked a lot like Hallie while she stood there with a determined scowl on her face. "Sorry, Firefly." He told her. "But I need you to stay with Auntie Sue tonight."

She was quiet for a moment, contemplating this. He could see the thought process on her face. She loved Sue. She was always following her beloved aunt around, if she wasn't stuck to his side like a shadow. "Will you be back for dinner soon?" She asked him, having accepted that he was, in fact, going out again.

"I don't think so." This was a white lie. He knew that he definitely wouldn't be back for dinner. Why? Because dinner was in half an hour, and he was going to be at least two hours.

Jessica looked up at him as if he had suggested that she throw her dolls out. "But we're having special dinner tonight!" She protested. "Auntie Sue said we're getting special rice from the take out!"

Oh yes, that was a favourite phrase at the moment. '_Auntie Sue said...'_

"That's nice." Johnny smiled at her.

"Will you be here?" She asked again, hoping her promise of Chinese food would win him over.

He gave her a sad smile. "Sorry, kid, but I don't think I will be."

"Please?" There were the fluttering eyelashes again.

Johnny sighed, and bent down, bringing himself to her level. "Jessie, I'm going to be back as soon as I can, but I need you to do something very important, okay?" He asked her. She nodded. "I need you to stay here, and be a good girl for Auntie Sue and Uncle Reed, can you do that for me?" He asked.

She nodded again. "Okay." She said quietly, not happy about the fact that Johnny was going out and leaving her behind again.

"That's my girl." He smiled, running his hands over her hair again. Then, he leaned in closer, and whispered loudly. "You wanna know a secret?"

This perked her up instantly, and her eyes glittered up at him. "Yeah!" She replied, mimicking his loud, exaggerated whisper.

"Daddy's gonna be on the TV tonight." He revealed.

Her shining eyes widened. "_Really_?"

"Yeah." He confirmed. "If you get Auntie Sue to let you watch X-Games, you can watch me on my bike. How does that sound?" He asked her.

"_Auntie Sue said _that I'm too little to watch it." She pointed out.

There went the 'Auntie Sue says' again. Johnny contemplated this for a moment. "Well, tell her that _Daddy says _you can watch it. Special treat." Her eyes shined brighter, nodding with a smile. "Just this once, though, okay?"

"Okay." She nodded quickly. "X-Games."

"That's right. Make sure you watch it, okay?"

"Okay." She repeated.

He had a thought, and smiled at her. "I'll wave to you, so watch it carefully." He assured her.

"I'll watch specially for Daddy." She told him.

"There we go." He smiled, getting back to his feet and looking down at her. "You be a good girl for Auntie Sue, okay?"

"The _best _good girl ever." She promised him.

"That's my girl." He said. "I'll try and be back before you go to bed, okay?"

She hugged his legs, promising again that she'd behave herself, and then ran back over to the dolls she'd abandoned on the ground. At a quick glance, Johnny noticed that one of these dolls was an action figure of The Thing, who was currently enjoying a Barbie tea party in the middle of the living room floor. He only wished that Ben was in the room to see what kids really did with his seven inch action figure.

Turning towards the door, he found Reed disappearing further down the hall, and called out to him. "Reed!"

"Johnny. Hi." He said, turning around. "Are you on your way out?"

"Yeah, X-Games qualifiers." He confirmed briefly. "Listen, are you busy tonight?"

"Not particularly." Reed told him. How could he be busy when Johnny had asked him and Sue to baby-sit for him?

"Great, can you do me a favour?" Wait, he was never going to agree to that. "Or rather, do Jessie a favour?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"Her pillow this morning was a bit..._singed_." Johnny said, remembering the smell of burning that had awoken him this morning, and how he'd covered up the evidence before anyone else saw, and sworn Jessica not to tell Sue. Okay, it was bad responsibility on his part, but the conversation of why the bedroom was on fire and no one was told wouldn't have been a good breakfast topic. "Is there any of the fireproof stuff left that my room's decked out in?"

Reed, to his surprise, actually laughed. "With the amount you go through, there's plenty." He confirmed. "I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks, man." Johnny said, going back towards the front door.

"No problem, and Johnny?" Johnny turned back when he reached the door, watching as Reed turned to Jessica for a moment, and then looked back at him. "Be careful tonight. You've got someone at home waiting for you, remember?"

Johnny simply smirked, and opened the door. "Like I'd forget."

----

The sound of crowds cheering and engines roaring filled the living room. Jessica, compelled so much by the television to the point where she was completely shut off from everything else around her, lay on her front before the television set. Behind her, sitting on the couch, where her two aunts and one of her uncles. Sue was on the end of the couch, reading with her legs propped up on a footstool before her, and Ben and Alicia were sitting together at the other end of the couch.

Ben frowned at the television, several times looking between the screen and Sue, who was making no move to change the channel. "Are you sure the kid should be watching this?" He finally asked.

Sue didn't even look up from her book to answer him. "She wouldn't be if _I _had say in the matter." She replied simply.

"Then why is she?" Ben asked.

"_Daddy _says so." Jessica piped up from before the television, her usually chirpy voice suddenly monotonous where something more important than talking held her interest.

Sue sighed, finally looking up from her book and nodding her head to Jessica as if her comment proved everything. "Johnny told her that he was performing, and she wants to see him." She explained. Ben nodded. "Besides," She added. "I'm just Auntie Sue. He's Daddy. Who do you think she's going to listen to?"

Ben smirked. "Good point."

Sue went back to the open pages on her lap. "As soon as someone falls off their bike, though, I'm changing the channel." She grumbled to herself. Whether it meant that Jessica missed Johnny's performance or not, she knew full well that this channel wasn't going to hide away any injuries, and Jessica was definitely not old enough to see some of those horrific injuries on television.

"_And now, put your hands together for a very special guest qualifier. Mr Johnny Storm, of the Fantastic Four_!"

In a bolt, Jessica forced her upper body up on the support of her arms, excitement covering her face as she pointed at the screen with one hand. "Auntie Sue, look! There's Daddy!"

"There he is." She confirmed, looking up for a moment to see her brother in all his motorbike leathers on his beloved bike, waving at the camera.

"Look, he waved at me!" Jessica squealed, waving back at the television screen even though Johnny couldn't see her waving. "He said he would wave at me."

Alicia smiled. "It's amazing how attached she's become to him." She mused.

Sue looked up, smiling in the direction of her friend. "I agree with you there." She half-laughed, but her laugh was caught short. She was silent for a moment, and then she stood up, marking her book page and placing it down beside the lamp on the table. "Can you two watch her for a while, as she's just sitting there?" She asked. "I need to go find Reed."

"Sure." Ben said, even though she'd already left the room with a massive grin on her face.

----

Having finished his set, and gotten an almost perfect score, Johnny was celebrating behind the cameras. He'd already had ten party invitations from the cheerleaders, and even some from the other contenders, but he declined them all without even thinking about them. Reed had been right. He had someone waiting at home for him. Okay, it wasn't the same as the girls that the others would probably have in their beds in the morning, but Johnny knew that the most important girl in his world was better than any party they could have taken him to.

However, when a newspaper lying on a table, dated at that morning, caught his eye, he left the X-Games before the last contender's heat was even over.

----

Sue went into the lab, expecting to see her husband working on his usual paperwork, but instead, he was bent over some familiar looking fabric. She approached him. "Reed, I...what are you _doing_?" She asked, almost amused as she saw him using something his technology had managed to make into a less-feminine looking sewing machine.

Reed looked up, smiling as he saw her at his side. "Johnny asked if I could make Jessica a new bed set. She singed hers this morning." He explained.

"He did?" Sue asked, an amused smile on her lips. Johnny was asking for things in his daughters welfare? That was another turn around on his behalf.

"Yeah." Reed confirmed. "He's doing well."

"He definitely is." She agreed, leaning against the back of his chair, watching over his shoulder as he added the finishing touches.

"I have to admit." He continued. "With no disrespect, when she first arrived, I was as doubtful as he was." He admitted.

"Tell me about it." Sue smirked

"But I've never seen this side of him before."

She had to laugh, running her hands over her husbands hair. "Neither have I, and I've lived with him nearly his whole life." She pointed out.

Pushing his completed work aside, he turned the chair around, so that she was now facing him. "Anyway, what brings you to the place you usually try to drag me away from?" He asked her, as she wound her arms around his neck.

"Well, I don't want to drag you away..." She told him, smiling sweetly. "I just wanted to come show you something."

"What's that?" He asked her.

"Close your eyes."

He frowned. "How can you show me something if my eyes are closed?" He questioned her.

She rolled her eyes. "Trust me." She told him. "It's a surprise. Now, close your eyes." He did so. "Okay, give me your hand."

He raised his hand into mid-air, and after a moment, Sue took it in her own. Then, she moved it closer towards her, and placed it over her stomach, and then waited a moment. He frowned a little in confusion, but wore a hopeful smile, and then...it happened.

"Oh my God." He whispered breathlessly.

"Can you feel him?" She asked, excitement clear in her tone.

He grinned, opening his eyes. "Yeah, I can feel him."

Tears came to her eyes, as the hormones flooded her with emotion once again. "He's finally kicking." She smiled, and Reed stood from his chair, not once moving his hand as his unborn child kicked against it.

"_Wow_." He whispered.

"Yeah, wow." She repeated, laughing with all the emotions that she felt as her son was kicking for the first time.

"This is..." He trailed off, unable to find a word to describe how momentous that moment of his life was. "_Amazing_." He settled on. "How does it feel?" He asked her, raising his head to see the beautiful smile on his wife's face.

"Weird." She admitted. "And I think he's punching my bladder as well," She laughed. "But...but it feels so amazing."

She smiled, and for a moment, he realised that the only other time he'd seen that smile was when he stood before her at the alter, and said his wedding vows. It was his smile. His smile, and hers, blended together. The smile that they'd only ever have at these moments, the precious moments that made up their life. Of course, Sue was always smiling. She smiled when he brought her a bowl of ice cream in bed after she'd had a tough day, or when he'd take her out somewhere and leave their location for a surprise. It was the simple things that made her smile; the early morning kisses, sloppy and untamed where they were still half asleep; the 'just because' kisses and embraces that she never expected but always loved. However, this was a smile that he knew he'd see again. He'd see this smile when she held their child for the first time, and the time their next child was born, and all of the days he couldn't stop dreaming about since he'd gotten back together with her.

"You know," He smiled, leaning in close to her as their son began to calm within her. "As fun as it is watching Johnny become a parent, I'm a lot more excited about _us _doing it." He told her.

She grinned, closing the gap between them. "Me too."


	14. Dear Johnny

Chapter 14: Dear Johnny

When Johnny arrived home, he bypassed the living room, where Jessica was still watching television, and found Sue as quickly as possible. Thankfully, his daughter was so engrossed with whatever she was watching as she sat on Ben's knee, that she didn't pay any attention to her father walking back into the apartment. He found Sue walking out of Reed's lab, smiling lightly to herself, but her smile faded when she saw her brother standing before her.

"Johnny, you're back early." She said, looking to the clock on the other side of the room which showed it was only a little after eight o'clock. The X-Games programme wasn't even finishing for another three hours, as she'd been explaining to Jessica a while beforehand that it was too late for her to stay up and watch all of it.

"I need to talk to you." He said quickly, leading her into the kitchen.

She followed him, still frowning, and quickly realised what was the matter with him. He threw down a newspaper onto the table, the front page facing her. She stared at it for a moment, and then finally realised what she was seeing.

_DADDY TORCH? _That was the main headline of the newspaper. Underneath, on the left, was a photograph of Johnny a few days before, walking just in front of Sue and Reed. Of course, the part of the picture that had clearly attracted the city's attention was the sleeping child on Johnny's shoulder. She knew immediately when it had been taken - the day they'd been to the park. All of Johnny's fears about being out in public had been right. Thankfully, Jessica's face was pressed into Johnny's neck where she had fallen asleep against his shoulder, so all that was visible was the back of her head, but it still didn't change anything. Underneath the photograph was the caption: _"Mysterious child for Storm?"_

"Oh no." Sue murmured, shaking her head.

"They saw us." Johnny said, as he started pacing around the kitchen.

"Johnny-"

"What am I going to do?" He asked her, sounding helpless suddenly. He stopped walking, and looked through the room division to where his carefree daughter was sitting with Ben, curiously examining his rocky hands as if she were playing with her new toys.

"We'll think of something." Sue assured him, as she crossed the room and put her hand on his arm.

He shook his head, sounding rather emotional as he watched her. "This isn't fair on her."

"I know."

"She's just a kid, she doesn't deserve to be-" He broke off, taking a deep breath, in which Sue frowned.

"To be what?" She questioned.

"To be like _me_." He whispered.

"Johnny-"

He shook his head, cutting her off. "She's just a kid. She doesn't need all of this." For a moment, Sue suspected that he was going to cry, but, being Johnny, he held back. "It's not fair for her to be watched and photographed because of who I am to the world."

Sue bit her lip, unsure of what she could say to comfort him. "We'll find a way around this." She assured him quietly, although, in her mind, she was unsure what they could possibly do. Jessica couldn't be hidden forever.

However, Johnny watched his daughters' innocence, as she bickered gently with Ben on the couch, her chirpy giggle fusing with his rough chuckles, and shook his head.

"She'd have been better off with Hallie." He spat out, and left the room.

----

He went into his room, again bypassing the living room, and closed the door behind him. For a moment, he leaned against the door, regretting the words he had just spoken. _Better off with Hallie_...he didn't mean that. Of course he _didn't_. But, in a way, it had been right. If she was with Hallie, she'd never have to deal with this sort of publicity, but then she'd never learn to control her power...she could hurt someone...

He went over to his top drawer, and opened it, taking out the manilla folder inside. It was the folder he had taken out of Jessica's bag on the day she arrived, holding within it the photographs and the legal documents. Somehow, whenever he had a bad moment of the past few days, looking at the things in that folder helped him. However, as he took out a pile of photographs, a letter fell out from between two of Jessica's baby pictures.

A letter addressed to him.

A letter from Hallie.

He picked it up, unfolding it, and started to read the words she had written to him.

_Dear Johnny,_

_I know that you probably want to tear this up, or, in your case, set it on fire, but please don't. I can understand why you'd want to, and I can even understand why you rightly hate my guts right now, but please hear me out before you choose to destroy this letter._

_At the moment, It's about half past four in the morning. In twelve hours, I'll be seeing you again for the first time in four years, but that's not the reason why my heart won't stop pounding, and it's definitely not the reason why I'm so scared. It's not the reason why I haven't slept all night either, and I know for a fact that I'm not going to be getting a decent nights sleep for a long time._

_I'm about to give up my daughter. It's easy to write that down, and I hate myself for thinking that it was surprisingly easy to say as well. I'm going to give her away to a man who doesn't know her, and she doesn't know him as anything other than the fire man from the news. She doesn't know anything about you, and that's my fault. I'm sorry that I've done this. I know that you're not going to believe me about that, but I am truly sorry. Maybe it's my fault for not being open-minded, but I just can't deal with this. Even though I don't feel it right now, it's only a matter of time before I realise that this is going to be the most painful and heartbreaking decision that I'll ever have to make, but I'm willing to accept that to make things easier for our daughter._

_Jessica has the same abilities as you. I can't kid myself about that anymore. I watched my daughter set her entire body on fire. You don't want to see your child do that. You don't want to watch the clothes burning off her body, wondering if the same is about to happen to her. You don't want to be the worried parent running to the hospital, knowing that you can't do anything for your child. It's horrible, I assure you. It will be the most terrifying experience of your life._

_I have a lot to explain to you about why I never came to you about the possibility of Jessica being your daughter. It was hard. There were two other men in the equation, and I'm not proud of that. I don't like the fact that my daughter has to grow up without a father for the first three years of her life because I'm too proud to admit that I screwed up. So, I just shut off from everyone. I gave up on seeing some of our mutual friends - people from high school that I thought I'd never lose contact with. I even stopped playing music for a while, in fear of hearing the songs we used to live by, because we had so many. Music was our life, remember?_

_It was hard, but somehow, with only a bridge between us, I avoided you for four years. The thought of dealing with you in any way was something I just couldn't handle, especially once Jessica came into the picture. It took many sleepless nights to weigh things over in my mind, and to come to the decision that I made by not telling you. I think it took the papers to open my eyes. It's not like I believe all of the hearsay and rumours, but the downside of you being a celebrity is that I have to read about your personal life in the papers at least three times a week. I didn't want that for my daughter. I wanted her to be able to go to school, make friends, and do everything normally, without people just being interested in her father. I didn't want my child to be in the public eye because of you. It's not fair for her to be put in a pedestal in your shadow. She's too young to understand._

_I'm not going to go into all of the things there are to say about what happened on that night between us. As it was clear from the next morning, it was the final barrier that we never should have crossed. I know that we were together before that night, just the once, the first time for both of us, but it should have been the last. That night had so many consequences for the both of us. You were a superstar, just like you always wanted to be, and I was the girl next door you left behind for fame. We were from two different worlds, and I couldn't live in the world you wanted to belong in._

_I wish I could go back to how things used to be - arguing over science homework with snacks in the kitchen. Things were simpler then. Innocent. We were innocent up until the first day you kissed me, I think. After that, we started crossing lines, and liking it too much. I think that was the most daring thing you've ever done, though, taking a chance on your best friend. Isn't that supposed to be a line that you never cross? I used to love the innocent, though. It was fun. Carefree. I loved it when you'd walk me home from school, even when we lost the innocence and we'd go to the park instead of to our houses, and just randomly make out, just for the hell of it. But that first kiss..._

_You were the first boy to ever kiss me, Johnny, and I knew I was the first girl you ever kissed. We were thirteen years old, but I'll never forget the way that your eyes gleamed at me when you first kissed me. I can still remember the feel of your body against mine when you held me so tightly, standing in the middle of the hall, right against your locker. I swear, to this day, that time actually stood still. I can remember every word we spoke, every touch of your hand, every step that we ever took together. I can even remember sitting in detention together when the principle caught us! I can play that again and again in my head so perfectly, like a movie on the big screen, and sometimes, when I think about it, I think I can actually feel your arms around me still. It's just disappointing when you realise that the breath against your lips isn't that of a memory, but just the wind._

_You have no idea how much I loved you. I still do. You were Johnny Storm, the guy that every girl wanted to be with, and you were more than willing to give them all a chance for it. You were in love with a different girl each week, and all the effort you put until looking good and being a good flirter...you didn't need it, Johnny. You didn't have to go out every night impressing girls. You didn't need to wine and dine them just to get some action. You didn't need to show off for their attention. You already had mine. Even when you didn't see it, i was watching, but I couldn't compare to those girls. I wasn't the same as them. I wasn't the type of girl who'd cover herself in make up for the boys. I never went out every single night to the cool kids parties. I never wore the skimpy skirts or the tiny tops. I never used my body to get attention from guys. I couldn't compare to those girls, and as much as I loved you, I got tired of trying...tired of competing._

_Everyone always thought that you were the tough guy. Johnny Storm. The Untouchable. The Untameable. Even before you were a superhero, everyone wanted to be you, just for a second. I suppose they're right. I mean, what could you possibly have to hate about the life you lead? People look up to you for what you do. People respect you. You're a celebrity. You don't even have to try and get people to live you, because you're you. But I know that somewhere inside of you is the man who can love and care for his daughter. The man that used to be the boy I remember. The real Johnny Storm, not the guy on the front page. The real you. The boy I feel in love with at thirteen when he pushed me up against his locker and kissed me._

_So, the next time you find yourself putting all of this on me, just remember that what we criticise in others is usually what we hate most about ourselves. One day, you'll be in the same position I was in. She'll be in pain, and she'll need you more than ever, and you'll have to decide whether you're going to be there for her or not. She's going to need you, and you'll be in the same position as me - wanting to help your child, but not being able to. _

_I just didn't know what to do for her, Johnny. You live with this every day. You set yourself on fire more times in one day than you've ever passed a pop quiz at school. I didn't do this because I don't love my daughter, I did this because I do love her. It's my love for you that is what will bring me to your door tomorrow, and hand her over. I'm sorry if I appear cruel by what I'll say, but I need to make sure that you have no way of handing her back to me. I'll never be able to help her with this, no matter how much I love her, but you can. You're her father, her Dad, and you're the only one who can help her now._

_Any guy can get someone pregnant, but it takes a man to be a father. Be a man, Johnny. I know that you can._

_You should know that she hates apple juice. She won't drink it, but she loves eating apples. Orange juice is her favourite. Her favourite colour is yellow, and God help you if you lose that doll of hers. She spent a night at my sisters without it once, and no one got any sleep because of her crying. Her bedtime is eight o'clock, but she'll always try to stay up later, and if she can't sleep, she'll try to get in your bed so she's not on her own. She's desperate to start school as well, so make sure that you choose her a nice kindergarten, where she'll make lots of friends. She's social like that, like you, so she'll talk to anyone who talks to her. She's badly allergic to mushrooms as well, so don't let her anywhere near them or you'll be spending the night in hospital with her. _

_I've included all the photographs I think you'll like as well. You've missed out on too many memories already. Jessica loves being in front of the camera. Bit like you really._

_I love you, don't forget that just because you hate me. Tell Jessica that I love her. Don't forget me._

_All my love,_

_Hallie._


	15. Flame Off, Right Now!

Chapter 15: Flame Off, Right Now!

Johnny put the letter down, holding it in his hands for a moment. The words on the page stood out against the white paper boldly, and from the way he stared at them so intently, an onlooker might think that the words were written in blood, rather than ink. In that moment, he realised how truly silent the world was. He could distantly hear the sound of traffic from the small opening in the window, but he wasn't able to hear what was happening in the room next to him; if anything. He couldn't hear the sounds he had done a moment ago, the innocent giggling of his daughter whilst she sat on his friend's knee, watching the television which had, previously, been blaring as loudly as if he had been watching it. It was all silent, leaving him along but for the tearing of his heart, which split the air like a sharp blade.

He had loved her. There had never been a girl as special to him as Hallie had been. If he'd known that she really had felt the same the whole time, he would have given her his heart, there was no question about that. Instead, he felt that she was always shunning his attempts to catch her attention, so he directed them to the other girls, who, in her letter, she had given up competing with. There had never even been a competition, not when it came to her.

He used to get so happy around her, and he knew that people used to notice. Sue, especially, used to tease him about the smile he'd get on his face after he had come back from Hallie's, and it was never the same smile he'd get after spending the night with any of the other girls. Hallie gave him different feelings, ones that weren't the same as the ones he'd experience in the middle of the night with girls he hardly knew and would probably never see him again. She didn't have to take him to bed to give him the night of his life. No, all the feelings that she gave him were new, ones that he wasn't even aware of let alone know how to deal with them. He just knew that he loved her, and that not being able to tell her that was scary and overwhelming. He knew that if he'd mentioned the 'L' word to the girl who knew all about his sexual exploits, that she wouldn't believe him anyway.

Since Jessica had arrived, he'd tried to turn that around. Most times, he managed to convince himself that he hated her, but in reality, he couldn't hate her. He just hated what she had done. He hated the fact that she had abandoned her daughter, their daughter, but he couldn't hate her. He couldn't hate someone that he had once loved with all his heart. She had been that person, the one who he couldn't stop thinking about, the one who made him get butterflies in his stomach even when he didn't want to admit to it. It was cliche to admit, but time actually stopped for him when she was there.

Without her, he didn't know what to do. If it hadn't been for Sue, he'd never have known what to do for the daughter she had thrown upon him. Would it have been different if he'd been there the whole time? Would he have stayed if she'd told him she was pregnant right from the start? Of course he would, there was no question about that. Being a father was never part of the plan, but if it was a question of his child growing up with him, or without him, he knew without thinking what he would have chosen.

Sighing, he turned back to the folder that the letter had fallen out of. Inside that folder were the photographs that he hadn't looked at yet. He'd had seven days now, but he'd only assure himself with the other contents of the folder. He didn't trust himself to look at everything he had missed out on, and use it as a means of cheering himself up. How was it motivating to look at everything you hadn't been there for? This time, however, he did look at the stack of photographs. It was a small bunch, but he hadn't expected her to send millions of photographs for three years worth of life.

The first one was of Hallie and Jessica, and it must have been taken right after Jessica was born. Hallie was sitting up in a hospital bed, holding a newborn baby wrapped in a thick pink blanket, with her face still covered in exhaustion from giving birth; yet still, she was looking down at the baby in her arms like she was the most precious thing in the world. All that could be seen of Jessica was a tiny arm reaching out from within the blankets. On the back, in Hallie's slanted scrawl, was written: _Jessica-Skye, three minutes old. _He'd had to wait three years to meet his daughter, but Hallie had only had to wait three minutes.

The next photograph was of Hallie standing sideways with Jessica, the baby girl still as tiny as she had clearly been in the first picture. She was wearing a white baby-grow, asleep on her mother's chest and clutching her t-shirt in her tiny fist whilst her face was turned towards the camera. Hallie was looking at the top of her head adoringly, with one arm supporting her underneath her diaper, and the other tenderly stroking her back.

The next, finally, was a photograph where Jessica was actually awake. She was lying on her front, blue eyes glittering with accomplishment from being able to push herself up on her forearms. Her soft brushing of pale brown hair was whispy over her entire head now, not just the slight dusting it had been over her newborn head. The photograph following it was similar, only she was older. Not by very much, mind you. This time, she was sitting up, looking up towards the camera for all the fuss that she was expecting for sitting up, no doubt, for the first time on her own. It was followed by the first time she had stood up on her own, clutching the edge of the table cloth. Johnny smirked, remembering being told the first time he had stood up on his own; however, he had used Sue's hair rather than a table cloth, and she hadn't been happy about it.

The other photographs were all random blurs from the life he hadn't been allowed to be a part of. There was Jessica with what would be her two elder cousins, Cassie's children, a boy and a girl who's names he couldn't remember, all in a swimming pool together, with Jessica in an inflatable; one of Jessica playing with a toy microphone that was covered in drool; Jessica sitting up between her two cousins again, this time in a garden which had a large rose bush behind them; and many of Hallie cuddling her daughter, which Johnny was starting to suspect that she'd included so that Jessica would know that her mother loved her.

Taking a deep breath, he put the photos back into a slightly less messy pile, and put them back in the folder, in between the birth certificate and the ink prints of her newborn hands and feet. He'd missed it all. He'd not been there for any of it. It didn't matter how freaked out about it he was now, he deserved to have been there. That was his right, it was a father's right. Jessica's father. He had rights, and responsibilities now, and the front of that days newspapers had proved that to him. He needed to keep his daughter safe, and help her lead a normal life as best she could with their shared ability.

Of course, knowing that he needed to do all of that, and all the plans he started to have in his head started to disappear the moment a loud smash and a short scream suddenly broke the silence he had been sitting in.

He bolted off the bed faster than he could ever remember moving, and he instantly headed for the living room, feeling the heat rising as he did so. If the scream before hadn't worried him, the heat certainly did, and whilst he prepared for many number of things in the living room to be on fire, he hadn't prepared one of those things to be his daughter.

"Jessie?" He asked, slightly stunned for a moment.

There, in the center of the living room, was his daughter. Although, when he meant center, he literally meant the center. She was hovering above the carpet, halfway towards the ceiling, completely engulfed in flame. The orange, reds and yellows flickered painlessly over her body, but it was fear that kept her rising, because it was the fear that controlled the flame. He remembered a time when he'd not been able to control the fire, and the fear had taken over. It was rare, but usually catalytic when it did happen.

Sue was standing at one end of the room, held back protectively by Reed, and Alicia standing beside them. All three of them were sheiling their faces against the almost explosive heat that didn't affect Johnny because of his high tolerance for it. Ben was trying his best to approach Jessica, but even he was having to stay considerably back because of the strength of her flame. High above them all, she burned as bright as the stars did, but so much closer; daddy's girl to the extreme.

"Johnny, make it stop!" Sue called out to him, rising her voice above the loud crackling sound of flames that filled the room.

Johnny snapped back into life, instinct completely taking over as he went as close to Jessica as he could get, yet he found that he too was forced back by the strength of her flames. "Jessica-"

"Daddy, help!" She shouted, when she saw him standing in the room.

"Jessica, turn the fire off!" He shouted back to her, sounding more parental than he'd done so far in the week she'd been there.

"I don't know how." She said weakly, her voice lost in the flames that consumed her body without the slightest hint of pain.

"Flame off, right now!" Johnny shouted again.

"I can't stop!" She squealed.

Trying to get to Johnny, Jessica moved forwards in a way that propelled herself through the air. The nickname that he had for her, 'Firefly', became all to literal for his liking as she was unable to control the newest development to her powers. Flying. She didn't know how to fly. She was three years old. Even Johnny had trouble with his directions at first, but that was once the adrenaline had worn off, and he wasn't escaping from a missile. Jessica wasn't escaping from anything. She was trying to get to him. However, she missed Johnny, and continued on. Johnny could only watch in fear as she went into the kitchen, and he started to follow her.

But she was too fast...and on she went...through the kitchen...through the open veranda doors...onto the large balcony...over the wall...and she didn't stop...

"JESSICA!" He shouted, for all the good words would have done at the moment he watched his daughter then levitating one hundred feet above nothing but solid concrete.

He ran onto the veranda, just as she disappeared over the side. At that moment, the panic consumed Jessica more than ever. Below her, she could see the absense of the ground, and when she realised just how high up she was, the terror set in. Horrified, and with no control, she flamed off, and all means of bouyancy in the air for her disappeared.

She screamed as she started to fall, her shrill squeal peircing the air as she whizzed down past the lower floors of the Baxter Building. Johnny flamed on the second his feet left the ground, flying down to her with much more speed and precision. Just at the right moment, a little below half-way down the building, he caught up to her and continued down, allowing space for her to drop into his burning arms. Thankfully, with her shared tolerance, she wasn't affected by the burning limbs that held her, and she stopped screaming when she realised that the only person who cold have been holding her was her father.

He flew them back to the top level of the building, and then placed her down on the ground, letting his own flame die down. On the veranda, the rest of the group had gathered, seemingly waiting for the two of them to reappear. He crouched down to her level and put his hands on her shoulders, giving the others no second glance.

"Are you okay?" He asked her, but she didn't answer, she just stared at him, breathing hard. "Jessica, are you okay?" She nodded, fear still in her eyes. "Do you hurt anywhere?" She shook her head, and Johnny dropped his head for a moment, taking similar deep breaths to hers. Then, he raised his head in the air, a different kind of fire burning in his eyes. "Don't you _ever _do that again, do you hear me?" He told her. "Don't you _ever _do that!"

The new harshness in Johnny's voice from her own level made Jessica's eyes widened. Even the others were slightly shocked at the anger and fear in his voice. However, whilst they knew that it was just because he had been afraid for her that he was angry, Jessica didn't know that. In response to his brief shouting, she turned on her heels and fled back into the apartment as fast as her feet would carry her.

Watching her go, and not trying to call her back, Johnny got to his feet, and then flamed on again, disappearing off the balcony before he could look the others in the eye. He needed to go where no one would look for him. He needed to think.

----

Reed had been the one who found him, which had surprised him. Sue had always been the one that sought him out first, and she never failed to find him no matter where he went. That's what happened when you spent most of your life hiding from someone who knew the hiding places before you were even born. However, it was his spot on the highest roofpoint on the Baxter Building that Johnny had sat contemplating, dreading the initial scare of how close he had just come to losing his child. As a father, it was his one job in life to protect her, and he hadn't even been able to do that. He'd just watched her until the last possible minute to take action. Shock or no shock, she shouldn't have even made it to the kitchen. He hadn't even been able to protect her.

Reed sat down beside him, looking out at the spectacular view of the city. It always looked better from the air at night, they thought. However, whilst Reed observed the sights for a moment, giving Johnny the final moments thought, the younger of the two was still thinking about that horrible moment when he realised that any second later, and he wouldn't have caught her.

"What happened up there, Johnny?" Reed asked quietly, after a moment. His shouting outburst had stunned them all, especially Jessica.

"You tell me." Johnny said simply, his voice void of all emotion.

"I don't know," Reed admitted, "but I know that there's a little girl hiding away right now and she needs you to be her father."

Johnny sighed, leaning his head down and grining his fists against his eyes, trying to fight the oncoming headache that would keep him up thinking all night. "I'm not sure I can be that guy anymore." He said quietly, filled once more with the same doubt that had been there a week ago, to that night.

Reed turned his head, and looked at him properly. "She already knows that you are, so you have to be." He pointed out.

"Reed-"

"You said you wanted to be the better person here, Johnny, so do it." Reed told him, as if he were giving a father-son talk, with the same determined advice in his voice. "Be the better person. You've already proven that you can be."

Johnny sighed again. "I don't know how to be a father." He realised, thinking back once again to how he had stood there for ten...twenty seconds even, when those seconds could have prevented any of the falling fiasco occuring.

"Neither do I, but in a few months time, I'm going to be one whether I'm ready to be or not." Reed reminded him.

"Yeah, but you've planned for this to happen." Johnny said, gesturing randomly to the city with his hand. "Hell, you and Sue have been trying for two years now, and everyone's happy for you that you're finally having a baby. No one looks at you and feels sorry for you. No one looks at you and doubts for any reason that you're going to be a great dad to that kid, because we all know that you're going to be!"

Whilst Johnny's voice got considerably louder throughout, Reed left a moment silence, and then spoke quietly. "What makes you think that?" He asked curiously.

Johnny smirked at him, looking at him out of the corner of his eye. "You've had enough practice with me, haven't you?"

Reed laughed lightly "I guess so."

Johnny shook his head. "You're cut out for this stuff, man. I'm not."

He frowned at his brother-in-law. "How can you think that after the last few days?"

"This is so hard." Johnny admitted quietly.

Reed nodded quietly, watching his hands for a moment. "Jessica was abandoned by her own mother, Johnny." He said, so quietly that his voice was almost lost on a passing breeze. "The woman who raised her for three years got scared and left her. I know that you're scared too, and that you don't know what to do, but do you really want her to be abandoned again when you're all she's got left?"

"No." He answered immediately, not even needing to think about the answers. For all the doubts in the world, he wasn't going to abandon his daughter.

"Then do something about that."

Johnny sighed, knowing that Reed was right. Reed was always right, usually in an annoying way, but that day, it had been the sort of right that he had needed to hear. If Ben had told him, he wouldn't have believed it. He would have told him to shut up, and then left the room, but hearing it from Reed was different. Because Reed was a father too. In a few months, he'd be holding his own child, Johnny's nephew, Jessica's cousin...on different levels, they were both going through the same thing. They were both learning to be fathers.

"Sue's going to kill me, isn't she?" Johnny mused with a smile.

Reed inhaled with a hiss. "Just...try and find Jess before Sue finds you." He advised.

Frowning, Johnny turned to him properly. "What do you mean 'try'?" He asked, suddenly worried.

"She's hidden herself somewhere." Reed revealed. "None of us can find where."

"Oh, man."


	16. Daddy Loves Me, Doesn't He?

Chapter 16: Daddy Loves Me, Doesn't He?

Johnny and Reed went back down to their Baxter apartment together, with Johnny now forgetting all doubts about raising a child, and back into the role of protective father. At the moment, he had branched off into protective 'where the hell is my daughter' mode, but that was exactly what he needed. Yet, Reed's advice hadn't worked out all that well. Despite his brother-in-law heading into the lab to look again in there for Jessica, Johnny was confronted almost immediately by his fuming sister in the living room.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" She demanded of him angrily.

"Should I?" He snapped back, more interested in finding his daughter than backchatting his sister for once.

"What's the matter with you, Johnny?"

He sighed, and calmly spoke to her, remembering that all the anger and stress she was directing at him wasn't good for her or her son she was carrying. "Look, Sue, I'm going to sort this out-"

"She loves you, Johnny." Sue practically exploded, speaking to him again like he was the child. "She adores you and the ground you walk on, and you just scared the living daylights out of her-!"

"I tried, okay?"

"No, you didn't!" She corrected him.

Johnny looked around, hoping for a way out to present itself. "Look, I didn't ask for this to happen, alright?"

"Neither did she!" Sue said, standing up for her niece. "I know that you're mad at Hallie for all of this happening, but you have nothing to be mad at Jessica for. Don't punish her because you can't punish Hallie."

"I wasn't punishing her-"

"This is a whole different situation." Sue cut him off. "We're talking about a child here, Johnny. Your child."

"You think I don't know that?" He snapped back, his own anger rising again.

"Do you realise how hard this is for her?" Sue accused him.

And that's when Johnny lost it.

"Do you realise how hard this is for me?" He snapped back. "I've got a daughter, and I haven't even existed for three years of her life, and now, all of a sudden, she's mine!"

"That's right, you do have a daughter!" Sue said, meeting his outburts blow for blow. "So, why don't you stop and think about that for a second. Jessica is a sweet, beautiful, amazing little girl, so why don't you stop worrying about why she's here and be happy with the fact that she is?" She suggested harshly.

"I can't be happy with that while Jessie thinks that her mother doesn't love her!" Johnny shouted at her.

Sue stopped. Her anger faded, and was replaced with disbelief. All was silent between the squabbling siblings for a moment. "She thinks that?" Sue asked quietly after a mment had passed.

Johnny nodded, taking deep breaths as the argument ended. "She keeps asking me why Hallie's not here, and why she doesn't love her anymore." He admitted. "I...I don't know what to say to her." He added helplessly.

"Johnny..."

"I was upset, okay?" He explained. "I found a letter from Hallie in Jessica's things, and I read it, and Hallie told me that the whole time, she really did love me like I loved her, but she still did this, and so I was upset. Then everything just piled on top of me at once, and I just...I broke, Susie." He said, emotion in his voice as he realised that, for a brief moment, he had failed again.

"It's okay." She assured him, with her hand on his arm comfortingly.

"No, it's not okay." He corrected her, shaking his head. "I can't break, not in front of Jessica. She's not meant to see me break."

"We're all entitled to our moments of weakness." Sue reminded him.

He looked at her sadly, wondering if, for the first time ever, he was able to give his sister parenting advice. Something that he had learnt from his mistake that he didn't want her to have to learn in the same way he had done. "But our children get scared when they see that."

Sue was silent for a moment, and then took his arm. "Come on, let's go find her."

----

After splitting up, it was Reed that found Jessica. The girl was hidden away in Sue and Reed's bedroom, lying on her stomach on the carpet in the gap beneath the crib that had recently been set up for the baby. He went into the room quietly, spotting the tiny white socks sticking out underneath the crib.

"Jessica." He said softly, approaching it.

"You found me." Jessica said in a tiny voice. It was easy to hear that she'd been crying.

"I guess I did," Reed smiled, as sat down on the carpet beneath his son's future crib, and watching as Jessica stuck her head out from underneath. "I'm getting better at hide and seek."

"Yeah." She replied quietly.

"Why are you hiding, sweetheart?" Reed asked her.

"I made Daddy mad."

"Jess..."

"Doesn't Daddy love me anymore?" She asked, her tiny voice shaking at the thought of the answer.

"Your father loves you very much." Reed assured her.

"But I made him mad." Jessica pointed out. "I made Mommy mad when I got on fire. Is Daddy going to leave me now too?"

"No, he's not." Reed told her.

"Promise?"

Reed held out his arms, and Jessica crawled out from underneath the baby's crib. Settling her down in his arms, Reed sighed. He'd heard the arguement between Johnny and Sue, and knew the underlying cause of the situation. "Jessica, you know that your Daddy loved your Mom very much?"

"Yes." Jessica said quietly.

"He loved her a lot, and when she went away last week, it hurt him inside like it hurt you." He explained softly. "Today, he really missed your Mom, and that made him hurt, so he got upset. He didn't mean to shout at you, honey, he just got too upset."

"Is he looking for me too?" She asked.

Reed nodded. "I got a bit cross at him, because he's messing up my lab trying to find you."

Jessica, who had quickly learnt the 'don't touch anything in Uncle Reed's lab' rule, widened her eyes. "Really?"

"Really." Reed nodded.

Jessica looked down for a moment, and played with the hemline of her shirt. "Are you going to shout at me, Uncle Reed?" She asked quietly.

He shook his head. "No, honey, I'm not."

"My Mommy shouted sometimes." Jessica told him.

"Well, I'm not Mommy." Reed said with a smile, remembering what he'd told Sue last week. "I'm Uncle Reed."

"I heard Auntie Sue shout at Daddy." She admitted.

"Well," He explained, "Daddy was being a bit silly, wasn't he?"

She nodded lightly, her confidence coming back to her. "Did Auntie Sue look after him?" She asked.

"Yes, he's not being silly anymore." He confirmed. "Do you want to go and find him?"

Jessica looked at the door, and then up at Reed again. "Uncle Reed, can you hold my hand when we go back? Just in case anyone is mad at me still?"

Reed tucked some of Jessica's hair behind her ear. "No one is going to be mad, sweetheart."

"I think Daddy might be."

"Daddy's not mad, Jess, he's just scared." He said.

Instantly, a look of alarm appeared on Jessica's face. "Daddy was scared of me?" She asked. "Like Mommy?"

Reed shook his head. "No, he was scared that you might have been hurt. That's what he was scared of."

Jessica nodded, the panic fading, and then she gave Reed a smile. "Uncle Reed, my Daddy loves me, doesn't he?" She smiled.

"Yes, he does." Reed smiled back.

Jessica smiled back even harder. "I know that, even though he doesn't tell me."

----

Holding Jessica's hand in his own, just like he promised, Reed escorted his neice back into the living room. At first, she had seem rather wondered when she discovered that his elasticated skin moulded underneath her fingers, but she was glad for it when she realised that she could hold on as tightly as she wanted without it hurting him.

Johnny was pacing the living room, mentally listing off all the places he'd think of to hide in the Baxter. He'd even been down and asked Jimmy whether he'd seen her in the lobby. Of course, the doorman had been quite shocked as to why Johnny was asking after a three year old girl, but his eyes had softened after a moment when Johnny explained to him, rather briefly, that she was his daughter. He hadn't seen her, but he'd promised to keep an eye out for her.

Sue and Ben looked up when Reed came back into the room, trailing one arm behind him.

"Look who I've found." He announced, bringing his arm forward so that Jessica was no longer hiding behind him. She was sucking her thumb on the hand that wasn't holding Reed's, curling the rest of her fingers around the edge of her nose, something that she only did when she was extremely tired, or nervous.

"Jessica." Johnny exclaimed breathlessly, crossing the room in less than a second. It wasn't long before he had the three-year-old bundled into his arms, hugging her furiously against him. Jessica wrapped her arms around his neck in return.

Whilst they embraced tightly, Sue approached her husband. "Where did you find her?" She asked.

"Underneath the crib in our room." He explained.

Sue smiled at the idea, and as she did every time she thought of the crib, she thought of the child that would soon lay within it. Leaning forwards, she kissed Reed, who returned her kiss before Johnny's voice, muffled against his daughters hair, attracted their attention again.

"I'm sorry." He told her, never sounding more genuine in his entire life. "I'm so sorry I shouted at you."

Jessica lifted her head from his shoulder, still in his embrace but able to look up at him. "Uncle Reed says its 'cause you miss Mommy." She remembered, speaking in her tiny voice.

Johnny nodded. "I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shout at you."

Jessica bit her lip, and frowned a little. "I miss Mommy sometimes too." She said, her voice so quiet that he almost didn't hear it.

"Oh, Jess..." Johnny murmered, taking her over to the couch. He sat down, and she crawled out of his lap, sitting beside him. He put his arm over the back of the couch, and she looked up at him with wide, expectant eyes. "Jessie, you know that you can talk about Mommy, don't you?" He told her.

She frowned at him, confused. "You won't get mad?"

He shook his head. He'd get upset, of course, but not on the scale that he had done that day. "Of course not." He assured her. "If you want to talk about your Mom, or if you want to ask me something about her, you can."

She nodded. "'Kay." She whispered.

"Okay." He repeated.

There was a small pause, and then she asked the question she was still worried about. "So, you're not gonna give me away like Mommy did?" She checked.

He gave her a gentle smile. "Come here." He said, opening out his arms. She crawled back into his lap, and he put his arms around her, hugging her stronger than he had done a moment before. This time, however, he pressed his lips to her forehead as well, kissing the skin that was still baby-soft. "I'm never going to give you away." He whispered into her ear. "You're mine, okay? You're going to stay with me, and I'm going to look after you."

"Forever?"

He nodded against her. "Forever."

"Promise?"

Johnny caught Sue's eye over the top of Jessica's head. She smiled at him, vaugely hearing his whispers in the silence of the room. He kissed the top of his daughter's head again. "I promise."

----

"Did Mommy leave because of me?"

Having made sure that Jessica knew that she could talk about Hallie whenever she wanted, Johnny had expected a quick fire round of questioning that bordered on interrogation on his daughter's part. However, the questions had never come. Yet, that had only been an hour ago. It was half-past nine, an hour past her bedtime, but he had been too preoccupied with other things to notice the clock. Now, though, it was bedtime.

He looked down at his daughter, sitting on the edge of her bed as he tucked the now fire-proof blankets over her and her beloved doll. Now, on the verge of sleep, with her little blue eyes almost glazed over with tiredness as she watched him, the questions were coming.

Sweeping back her hair, he sighed. "Mom left because of Mom." He told her. "You did nothing wrong."

"I heard her tell Auntie Cassie that she was scared of me." She admitted.

Johnny gave her a smile, poking his finger on the edge of her nose, and watching as she crossed her eyes trying to follow it. "What's scary about a pretty girl like you?" He teased her.

"I make things be on fire." She pointed out.

He nodded solemly. Her demonstration earlier that evening had been proof of that. "We all do that sometimes," He explained to her. "Just me and you do it more than others."

"I like doing it, but not all of the time." She told him.

"Me too."

She took in a deep, sleepy yawn. "Can you teach me not to do it?" She asked him through her yawn, as he made sure she was completely settled in the bed.

"Yeah." He nodded.

"Really and truly?" She asked him, making sure that this wasn't an empty promise. However, after everything that had happened that day, he wasn't going to be making any empty promises to her again.

He nodded. "Really and truly, but not now." He told her. "It's getting late, and you didn't have a nap today."

She yawned again. "Nu-night, Daddy." She told him sweetly. "Love you."

"Night, firefly." He told her. "You got a kiss for Daddy in there or are we too tired?" He asked her.

Giving him a sleepy smile, she leaned up from her pillow, granting him with a kiss on his cheek. He smiled, and covered her with the blanket once more. "Night, kid." He smiled at her, before turning off the light and leaving the room.

He might have been doing okay with the parenting, but he still hadn't told her that he loved her.


	17. The Bestest Daddy In The Whole World

**Hi guys, I just wanna thank you all for your amazing support with this story. I really appreciate all your reviews, they really make my day. I can now confirm that I have finished writing this story, and the chapter after this is the final chapter, or rather, the epilogue. This is what the whole story boils down to. Something happens at the end of this chapter that you've all been waiting for (including me ... I even got impatient at myself for dragging it out for so long) HOWEVER there WILL be a sequal that I've already started working on, and I'll give out the details of that at the end of the final chapter.**

**Sammy**

**xxxx**

Chapter 17: The Bestest Daddy in the Whole World

The following afternoon, Johnny found himself sunbathing again. He'd not had much time to himself since the last time he'd sunbathed, and part of him still wondered whether he'd find himself waking up to Sue with her hands on her hips again. However, it didn't happen. He didn't sit there with a drink other than a glass of water. He couldn't remember the last time he'd drunk alcohol...times got a bit bleary after he'd been over a week without a hangover. If he'd known first hand that a three-year-old presence was going to prevent the use of alcohol, he might have been more desperate than he already had been, yet he found that with Jessica around, he found a more natural high to be on.

He'd been rather responsible that morning, he realised. At about nine am, when the group had just finished breakfast, Jimmy called up from the lobby to explain that the reporters were gathering in quantities that only rivaled the times when they first became established heroes. It was no secret why, either. All of the journalists were there with their cameras, waiting for the perfect picture...the face shot of the mysterious child that everyone wanted. He'd flicked on the television, and seen that news reporters on every station were giving reports about waiting outside. Frowning, he made his decision. Something needed to be done. He'd promise himself that he wouldn't let Jessica's life be affected by the publicity he longed for every day. He had to admit, he had days where he didn't want to be photographed anymore. Being loved by the entire city had been replaced by the need to be loved by a singular person. His daughter.

So, Johnny had gone downstairs, leaving Jessica up in the apartment, and confronted the press.

_Yes_, he had told them, the girl he had been carrying was, in fact, his daughter.

_No_, he wasn't willing to discuss her arrival.

_No_, he wasn't going to reveal the identity of the child, or the child's mother.

_No_, he wasn't going to be making any further statements on the matter.

Oh, and his final point, before he went back upstairs to the daughter waiting for him, was that if any of the reporters hassled his daughter and interfered with her life in _any_ way, they were going to be on the wrong side of the Torch's flames.

That alone had reduced the crowd outside of the Baxter building.

When he returned upstairs, the rest of his family were watching the statement he'd just made on the news. Strangely, Sue gave him perhaps the proudest smile she'd ever given him, and he'd been worried for a moment that she might actually hug him.

So, he considered himself more than entitled to a relaxing afternoon.

Sue had been making cookies in the kitchen with Jessica, and both of them had ended up with large quantities of flour and chocolate chips in her hair. It was messy, and it had taken them at least an hour to clean up in the kitchen afterwards, but both of them had enjoyed the female company, with music playing in the background. Johnny had enjoyed listening to the two of them laughing from his spot in the sun. It was nice to hear Jessica laughing, and it was good to hear Sue laughing as well considering how exhausted she had been with her pregnancy recently.

Now, however, with Sue already cleaned up, it was Jessica's turn for a bath. This time, though, Sue had offered to bathe her. Johnny was about to point out to her that last time, she had said she wouldn't be able to lean over to help her, but Jessica wanted to try and bathe herself this time. Sue was merely going to sit in the bathroom with her and make sure that she didn't end up drowing herself in shampoo. They'd already had a red eye incident with the shampoo that week when she hadn't tilted her head back far enough. The bottle said _'no more tears'_, but that had clearly been a lie. There had been tears. _Many_ tears.

Johnny had to admit that he was enjoying the peace and quiet. It had been a long and strenuous week, but then there was the matter of how much fun it had been, once they got through the hard parts. However, his peace and quiet was disturbed by Reed's sudden huffing and puffing at his side. "Johnny."

Removing his sunglasses and looking up at his brother-in-law, Johnny raised an eyebrow. "What's the matter with you?" He asked. "You run a marathon I don't know about?"

"It's Jess."

Johnny was up on his feet in less than a second. "What? What's happened?" He asked quickly.

"You better come quick."

----

They could hear Jessica crying from down the hall. Johnny ran down the hall, overtaking Reed once he heard his daughter's painful cries. He pushed open the bathroom door, which hadn't been closed properly, and a light misting of steam was released into the hall. Sue was carrying Jessica, holding her against her chest as best she could with her pregnant stomach, half-wrapped in a towel whilst she cried.

"Oh my God." He murmered, as he ran the last few steps forward, going to put his hand over her back to assure her that he was there, for all the good it would have done, but Sue quickly realised what he was about to do, and slapped his hand away gently.

"No." She told him frantically. "She's hurt there."

"What happened?" Johnny asked.

Sue responded by simply using one hand to lift the towel away from Jessica's back for a moment. Johnny swore under his breath, and Sue went back to soothing her niece. "The water around her was boiling, Johnny." She told him, gesturing to where the bathwater was still simmering at a dangerous level, even though Jessica was no longer seated in it.

Her back was covered in what appeared to be a very slight burn. There was no blistering like with a serious burn, because of her tolerance to fire, but her panic had clearly lowered her tolerance for moment, allowing the boiling water to turn her skin a bright shade of red. Not one inch of her back was unmarred. No wonder why was in so much pain. Johnny looked away for a moment, unable to see such distress to his daughter.

"Why didn't we think that this might happen?" He asked himself, opening his arms and allowing Sue to pass the crying child between them, a short howl of pain escaping her as he accidently brushed her back. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He apologized to her quickly as she wrapped her arms around his neck tightly, her damp tears instantly falling against his neck. "She can't control this." He muttered, turning to face Reed. "Reed, can't you stop this hurting her?" He asked.

He simply looked at them, a vauge distance on his face. "I...I don't know." He admitted.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Johnny demanded, his voice rising above that of the screaming child.

Reed shook his head. "I can put something on it to bring the burning down, but it's going to hurt no matter what I do."

"You have to do something!" Johnny exclaimed, his desperation rising. "We can't just leave her like this!" He took a deep breath, almost apologizing silently for his outburst, and turned to Reed once more, emotion flodding his voice. "Please, Reed, we've got to do something. Anything. Please."

Reed simply stared again. He knew that they had to something. He just didn't know what to do. This is why he supposed medical doctors weren't supposed to treat family. He just blanked. Eleven years of scientific research vanished before his eyes, and was replaced with a simple horror about what had happened to this child.

"Reed!" Sue snapped, with just as much desperation as Johnny when Reed didn't answer.

"Okay." He decided with a nod, knowing exactly what to do now that his sense had flodded back to him. "Right, let's get her into the lab."

Within seconds, they had left the bathroom, and entered the laboratory. Johnny sat down on one of the swivel chairs, with Jessica still clinging to him, covered only in a towel. Reed rushed around at the other side of the lab, but Johnny didn't watch him. He trusted that Reed was going to do whatever was needed. Whilst he held the sobbing girl against him, he tried to painlessly remove the towel from covering her back, and it fell against her waist, covering most of his legs as well as hers.

Reed came back, holding in his hands a tube of what appeared to be an anti-septic cream, and he knew that it was the aloe that was going to cool down her skin. "Talk to her, Johnny." Reed told him, unscrewing the cap. "Get her to focus on you rather than the pain."

Johnny nodded, leaning his head down so that he was right beside Jessica's ear, stroking her hair with one hand. "Jess...Jessie, baby, can you hear me?" He asked her, his protective voice trying to remain as calm as possible.

"Daddy." She said in a choked sob.

"Yeah, that's right, firefly, I'm here." He told her, stroking down her hair again. "I'm here. It's okay. I've got you."

"Hurts." She whined.

"I know. I know, but Uncle Reed's here too, and he's going to make it all better, okay?" He told her.

"Kay." She said weakly, and Johnny felt her hand cling onto the back of his shirt where her hands were linked around his neck.

"Okay, Jessica." Reed said from where he had crouched at her side. "I'm going to put some cream on your back to make it better. It's going to hurt for a minute, but then it will go nice and cold and it won't hurt anymore." He told her, remembering what someone had once told him about children responding to medical help when they knew exactly what was going to happen.

Johnny continued stroking her hair. "Do you think you can be brave for Uncle Reed?" He asked her. Jessica nodded against his shoulder. "I thought so. Good girl." He told her.

Reed began to apply the cream, and Jessica bit her lip furiously against the sting. Johnny felt her tense up at the sudden appearance of a new pain, and he looked to his side to see the edge of her knuckles turning white as she clung to his shirt. He began to whisper nothings into her hear, telling her that she was brave, and that it was going to be okay now, to help her through it, but the whole time, he remembered what Hallie had written in her letter.

_One day, you'll be in the same position I was in. She'll be in pain, and she'll need you more than ever, and you'll have to decide whether you're going to be there for her or not. She's going to need you, and you'll be in the same position as me - wanting to help your child, but not being able to. _

She had been right. Now, it was his turn. He had to be the one holding his child, knowing that he couldn't do anything to help her when she was in pain. He was the scared one now. He was the one left helpless. It was fight or flight now. He had the same choice Hallie did. Her powers, uncontrollable and at the moment, completely untamed, had brought her to harm, and so he faced he same choice as her mother had done. Was he going to surrender, and run away from the situation, or was he going to stay and help his child fight this?

He didn't even need to think twice about his decision.

"Okay, all done." Reed announced, as he screwed the cap back onto the tube of cream. When he leant back, away from Jessica, Johnny rocked her gently in his arms.

"It's all done now, Jessie. It's all finished now." He assured her.

Reed set the cream aside, and joined Johnny in comforting her. "Good girl, Jessica. You did very well."

Sue came over, her arms folded over her chest as she watched them uncomfortably. As an expectant mother, she'd been very disturbed by what had just happened. "Is she going to be alright?" She asked hesitantly.

Reed stood up, nodding at her. "As long as she stays off her back while the redness calms down, she'll be fine, but I'll cover it anyway so that none of her clothing aggrivates it." He explained.

Sue nodded, and for a moment, all was slightly calming. Jessica's sobs drifted into whimpers as she cried herself to sleep, and when she had fallen completely silent, Johnny sighed heavily, the panic of the moment deserting him as he rested his head lightly atop of his daughters. "Johnny, are you okay?" She asked him softly, placing her hand on his shoulder.

He raised his head to see her standing there. He hadn't noticed until then that she was there. "Yeah...I just...yeah."

----

The next morning, Johnny awoke in exactly the same position he had fallen asleep with; lying on his back, with Jessica lying on her front as he held her atop his chest. The intuition of a sleeping person was amazing when a child was near. He'd always been a rather active sleeper, even since he was a child, tossing and turning all night, but as soon as he had spent the night with Jessica in his bed as well, he found that he never moved a muscle when she was there.

Jessica was awake, however she hadn't moved out of the position he had carefully placed her in last night, the only way they could get the restless sleeper to sleep without rolling onto her back. Her cheek was still comfortably resting on his chest as her arms fell on either side of him. He easily could have mistaken her for being asleep still, but she was gently drumming her fingers against the mattress beneath him. He reached out, and stroked her cheek softly

"Hey there, firefly." He whispered.

She moved up his body a little, resting her head on his shoulder rather than his chest, so that she could look up at him. "Hi Daddy." She whispered back.

"Does your back hurt?" He asked her, a worry in his voice that no longer surprised him, but she shook her head against him.

"No." She murmered.

"That's good, baby." He smiled at her, kissing her forehead. "Do you hurt anywhere else?"

"Yeah." As she nodded, a dread filled Johnny with the panic that she had been hurt somewhere else, and that in the head of the moment, they had missed it.

"Can you tell me where?" Johnny asked her.

"My tummy hurts, 'cause I'm hungry." She told him in a loud whisper.

Johnny let out a breath that he hadn't even been aware he was holding until that moment, but he mentally scolded himself when he realised that Jessica hadn't had a chance to eat dinner the night before since she had gone to sleep almost immediately. No wonder she was hungry. He gave her a small smile, though. "It's still early, so we'll go and get some breakfast in a while." He told her.

"Was I brave yesterday?" She asked him

He nodded firmly. "You were really brave. A lot braver than I would have been." Of course, he could honestly say that now. He understood Hallie's letter now when she talked about feeling helpless, and how painful it was to know that you couldn't help your child. It really had been the scariest moment in his life, and he had experienced it two days in a row; once the night before, and the same as the fleeting moment in the night before that, where she had almost plummeted to her death from the top of the building.

"Braver than you?" She asked quietly, as if she wasn't sure anyone could be braver than her father.

He nodded. "Yeah, a lot braver."

Jessica was silent for a moment, watching Johnny with her deep blue eyes. "But I made you worry." She muttered, holding on tighter to him.

"I was scared," He admitted, "but you don't need to be sorry for that, okay?" He assured her. "You have nothing to be sorry for. It wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was." She argued simply.

"No, it wasn't." He assured her.

"But it was." She repeated. "I made the water hot."

Johnny scraped back some of her slightly tangled brown hair. "You didn't know you could do that." He pointed out. "No one did. So it's no one's fault. We've just got to figure out how to stop it happening again."

"I want it to stop, 'cause I like my baths." She said innocently. No, she wasn't concerned about being hurt again. She was more worried about the fact that her precious bathtime had been ruined.

"I want it to stop too, 'cause I don't want to see my baby girl getting hurt." He told her quietly.

Jessica let out an early-morning yawn against him, curling up closer into his arms. "I'm glad that I live with you now, Daddy." She told him.

He smiled, feeling his heart swelling inside of his chest. "Me too."

"I think you're the bestest Daddy in the whole world."

Nine days into their time together, and he was, suddenly, the best daddy in the world. "Why do you think that?" He asked her lightly.

She shrugged, and he heard her wince a little when the action caused her back to hurt for a moment, and he instinctively steadied her in his arms. "I just think you're what a Daddy's meant to be like."

He smirked a little. "What does a Daddy have to be like?" He asked, still unsure as to what he was doing to make Jessica put so much faith into him.

"I don't know." She said, not shrugging this time. "Just you."

He was unable to prevent the smile that crossed his lips. "Thanks, firefly."

"I don't mind Mommy not being here because I'm with you." She continued.

He tightened his arms around her waist, careful not to hurt her back. "You'll always be with me." He assured her, feeling her chair tickling lightly underneath his chin.

"We're gonna be together forever, right?"

"You bet." He grinned at her, nudging his head against hers.

"I love you, Daddy."

This tiny child, who had done nothing more that capture his affections in the quickest way, loved him. His daughter loved him. He'd never wanted to be a father, up until now, and suddenly, it was the only thing that he wanted to do. He wanted to love her until his dying day. He wanted to let her know that he'd always have time for her; always take her to the park no matter how many photographers were there, always be at her school for school plays and parents night, always be at her side when she was sick, and always there to cheer her on in everything that she did.

At first, he thought it was just a curiosity thing that made him want to occassionally check in on what she was doing and how she was. Then, as the days wore on, he couldn't deny that he'd fallen in love with her as well, he just hadn't been able to say it to her. When she smiled, he smiled, even though the two of them were struggling to get from day to day within their new lives fused together. When she cried, he felt like his heart was tearing in two, and he was willing to go to the ends of the earth to stop her fears. When she was scared, he wanted to hold her, and show her that as long as he was there, she had no reason to be afraid, because he was going to protect her for as long as he lived.

He snapped back into the room, away from the thoughts that flooded him with dangerous levels of emotion. In a way much unlike his regular self, the shimmery residue of tears was clouding his vision, but he could still clearly see the watching blue eyes of the child before him, looking up at him with the same expression he'd once given to his own parents when he was that age. The expectance; waiting for guidance, wanting to know everything that he had to offer; because even though he had failed the night before to stop her coming to harm, he was still the guider, the protector, the father, and in her eyes, he knew everything.

Jessica's eyes, the exact replica of those that belonged to the woman he loved stronger than any burning passion he'd ever experienced, were unmoving as she watched him, a hopeful yet dejected expression on her face. She was hoping that he would respond to her decleration, like she did every time she told him that, just like any child would expect to be told that when they said that they loved someone. It was how they learnt to love, by recieving. It was how they learnt to give love. Yet, every passing day that held Johnny silent was increasing the underlying rejection she felt.

Johnny closed his arms tighter around her, bringing her full into his arms. She moulded against him, a perfect fit for him to cradle against his chest. Her tiny arms linked around his shoulders, and she gave him a kiss on the cheek with her sloppy lips.

"I love you too, Jessica." He whispered to her, and though his words were quiet and softly spoke, she smiled up at him, finally hearing the words that she'd been waiting for, and finally knowing that she was where she belonged.

**It happened guys. He finally told her!**


	18. We Do What We Can With What We've Got

**_This is the final chapter guys...cries I hate ending stories...I don't get around to it often, which is why I have so many unfinished lost fics. However, before I post up the sequal to this, I will be working on finishing some of them first, so I might have a break for the summer before putting the sequal up. I'm not sure yet..._**

Epilogue: We Do What We Can With What We've Got

Two months passed, and they passed quickly. Johnny and Jessica grew so close that it was almost impossible to tell that they had been apart for the first three years of her life, and he certainly continued to tell her that he loved her. Once he had told her the once, he'd found it hard to stop saying it, so he hadn't fought the decleration every time he had the urge to say it. They were a real family now, as they saw it.

Of course, two months then meant that Sue only had a few weeks left until the baby was due. Her and Reed were more excited than ever about their son arriving, and they had all explained to Jessica about what it would mean when the new baby was born. However, rather than resenting another child to share her father, aunt and uncle's attention with, she was thrilled at the idea of being the elder cousin for once. Johnny knew that she missed her other cousins, Cassie's children, a lot, but he had no means of getting in contact with them, and they certainly chose to stay away themselves.

So, two months to the day that Johnny first told his daughter that he loved her, he stood in the middle of the airport with his sister. Someone had needed to go with her, and as it was their father they were awaiting at the busy terminal, it was voted that Johnny go with her. Reed and Ben were at the park with Jessica, probably at the new favourite park that she liked to visit as many times a week as possible. If they took her three times a day, she probably wouldn't mind, but alas, as free as the Fantastic Four usually were, they had other things to do than go to the park so many times in one day. However, they managed to take her a few times a week.

"Dad's gonna kill me." Johnny murmered under his breath, his hands shoved in his pockets like a scolded child. Yes, that was the one problem - his father, Frank Storm, didn't have the slightest idea about his granddaughter.

"It'll be fine." Sue assured him kindly.

He raised his eyebrows at her. "Once he sees Jessie, he'll think that I've just been a jerk and ignored her all these years." He pointed out.

"He won't think that of you." Sue defended quickly.

"Won't he?"

She didn't answer him. "We'll explain, and it'll be fine."

"Stop saying it'll be fine." He told her irritantly.

"It will be." She repeated, with a simply shrug.

He sighed, fidgetting on his feet for a moment. "Can't we just not mention her?" He suggested.

Now it was Sue's turn to raise an eyebrow at her younger brother. "What, you think he won't notice a three year old girl running around the apartment?" She told him. "It's a big apartment and all, Johnny, but you know what she's like with people..."

"Well, if you go into labour in about ten minutes time, he'll be more occupied with his grandson." Johnny pointed out.

Sue turned to him fully, staring him down even though he was a little taller than her. She put her hands on her hips, as folding her arms over her large stomach no longer made her look authorative to him. "I'm not even due for two weeks. I can't control when I go into labour." She pointed out to him.

He shrugged. "I'm just saying, it'd be helpful." He covered up.

She shook her head. "I think he'll want to meet his granddaughter as well, Johnny." She told him.

----

"Johnny. Dad."

Sue's voice stopped both father and son in their tracks. Frank had a simple flight, but was currently complaining to his two children about a small bout of turbulance that had sent his drink flying into his lap. At her voice, however, they both turned, seeing her leaning with one hand against the back of a chair, and another resting over her stomach.

"Sue, what's wrong?" Johnny asked, as they went over to her side.

"Susie?" Frank questioned, his tone mimicking Johnny's.

She looked up at the two of them with a small frown on her face. "I...I think I just had a contraction." She told them, a look in her eyes telling them that she didn't want to believe what she was saying.

Johnny's eyes widened. "No!" He cried. "When I said ten minutes time, I didn't mean literally!" He told her.

"Johnny!" She snapped back at him.

"What do I do?" He asked her, not prepared for this moment at all.

"Call Reed." She told him simply, as her father helped her start moving through the airport before anyone noticed who she was, and towards a taxi that could get her to the hospital.

Johnny took out his cellphone, and dialled Reed's cell, knowing that he'd still be at the park with Jessica and Ben.

"Reed?" He asked, the second he heard the phone being picked up.

"Johnny. What's wrong?" Reed asked, hearing the tone of his voice.

"Uh...I didn't mean to but...I uh..."

"Johnny. What's going on?" Reed asked again.

"I think I made Sue go into labour." He explained, wincing as he said the words.

"What? What do you mean you made her?"

Johnny groaned, following his father and sister to the exit of the airport. "I told her it would be useful if she could have the baby so Dad would be distracted, and then she had a contraction." He told him.

"Are you sure it was a contraction?" Reed asked, after a moment of being silent.

"Susie said it was, and I'm not gonna argue with a pregnant woman." He told his brother-in-law.

Reed sighed. "Okay, go to the hospital, and we'll meet you there." Reed said.

Johnny hung up the phone, and pushed through a crowd of people surrounding Sue.

----

Johnny lifted Jessica up onto his hip, showing her through the glass the rows of babies in their plastic cribs. He looked through all the different surnames on the front of the cribs, each written on a card coloured with whatever sex the baby was...blue, Jenkins...pink, Parsons...pink, Bailey...blue, Greenwood...blue, Richards...

"There." Johnny said, pointing his finger towards the baby his eyes had settled on. Moving along the window a little until they were right in front of him, he continued to point out the baby to the daughter on his hip. "You see him?"

Jessica nodded, her wide eyes filled with awe. "Yeah." She said excitedly.

"That's your new cousin." Johnny explained.

"What's his name?" She asked, still just as excited.

"His name's Franklin." Johnny told her, as Ben had passed on the message a moment ago. Reed had left the delivery room to tell Ben what was going on while Johnny had remained downstairs with Frank and Jessica, and then their rocky companion had been to tell them the good news about the newest member of the family.

"Franklin." Jessica repeated, trying out the name on her tongue.

"That's right." Johnny nodded.

Jessica grinned. "Now Auntie Sue and Uncle Reed have a baby like you do!" She pointed out.

Johnny laughed at this. "Yeah, they do."

"But I'm not a baby anymore, am I, Daddy?" She said, still not taking her eyes off the little baby that was her cousin.

Johnny kissed the side of her head. "You're always gonna be my baby." He told her.

"Even when I've got lots of babies too?" She tested him.

He resisted the temptation to tell her that she wasn't allowed to start dating until she was thirty. "Even then." He assured her.

Dropping the conversation, Jessica focused back on the baby. "Franklin looks funny." She said, screwing up her face in the same curious way she had done when she'd first called Ben funny-looking.

"That's 'cause he's so little." Johnny told her.

"He's all wrinkly." She pointed out, smearing her hand against the window before them.

"Well," Johnny began, locking eyes with his father, who stood beside them, and winking at him. "Your grandpa's called Franklin as well, and he's all wrinkly too."

"Hey." His father protested playfully, but Jessica giggled.

"Will Franklin stay wrinkly forever?" She asked.

"Not for long." Johnny told her.

"Can he play with me yet?" She asked.

He shook his head. "Not yet, baby. He's not big enough. He's got to learn to walk first."

She nodded, and proudly announced her next statement as if she were the only person in the world to know; "Babies can't talk yet, too."

"No, we've got to teach him that as well." Johnny confirmed.

Jessica frowned at him. "Isn't that Auntie Sue and Uncle Reed's job?" She questioned, causing Frank to laugh from her side at her inquisitive expression.

Johnny rolled his eyes. "We can help them out a little."

"Good." She decided, nodding firmly. "'Cause I gotta look after him, 'cause he don't got a big sister like you do."

"No, he doesn't."

"So, he's got a big cousin instead, and I'll look after him."

Johnny smiled. "That's my girl."

"Hey."

Johnny looked around, turning as Reed appeared at his side.

"Hey." He said to his brother-in-law, clapping him on the shoulder with the arm that wasn't holding Jessica to his hip. "Congratulations, man."

"Thanks." Reed grinned uncontrollably. "You found him in there?" He asked, approaching the window for himself.

Johnny nodded at the baby they were looking down on. "Franklin Jonathan Richards." He read off the card. "Found him alright."

"He's wrinkly." Jessica piped up to Reed, who laughed at her.

"Jess, be nice." Johnny scolded her lightly.

"What?" She asked innocently, sounding exactly like her father. "He is."

Reed sighed, looking through the glass window. "He's really something." He murmered in his son's direction.

Johnny grinned. "Welcome to the Daddy Club." He nudged him.

"Thanks." Reed laughed gently.

"How's Sue?" Frank asked from Johnny's other side.

"She's fine." Reed smiled. "I'm about to take Franklin up to see her, but she wants to see you first, Johnny."

Johnny nodded, and whilst Frank and Jessica stayed behind with Reed, he around the corner to Sue's room.

----

"You named him after me."

Sue looked up as her brother entered her private room. She smiled at him. "And Dad." She pointed out.

"Why me?" He asked her, still confused as to why she had given her son the same middle name as his first name.

"Because you're my brother." She said, as if it were explaination enough. "And if it wasn't for you being so awkward growing up, I wouldn't have a clue how to be a parent." She added lightly.

"Well, learning through experience..." He laughed, sitting down on the edge of the bed that she lay in. He was silent for a moment, and then smiled proudly at her. "Congratulations, sis. He's one hell of a kid."

"Have you see him?" She asked anxiously.

Johnny nodded. "Jessie said he's wrinkly." He laughed.

She smirked, but then her smile faded. "They took him away to check for radiation when he was first born." She explained. "I know Reed's seen him, but I haven't had a chance yet."

"Reed's bringing him up now." Johnny said, motioning his head towards the door.

"Really?" She asked, her entire face lighting up.

He nodded, and then turned serious. "Sue...I...before the others get here at witness me being...well, soppy...I want to say thanks." He told her quietly.

"What for?" She asked him.

"You raised me into who I am after Mom died." He reminded her. "I mean, Dad's great, but we all know that it was you who did what I needed. You stopped me going completely off the rails, and most of all, you taught me how to love my little girl. And now, you've got Reed and Franklin...you've got your own family. I don't expect you to keep being there to look out for me, not when we're both looking out for our own kids, but before we take a step back and realise that we're twenty years down the line again, I want to thank you for everything."

She sniffled slightly, smiling at him with tears in her eyes, so strong that she actually had to wipe the underneaths of her eyes with the back of her hand. "Johnny, I'm still hormonal. Don't make me cry again." She warned him lightly.

"I mean it, Sue." He told her warmly. "You've always done so much for me, and I've never really thanked you."

"You can make it up to me with a lot of babysitting." She told him playfully.

He smirked. "Sure thing."

"Someone needs to meet his Mommy." Reed said, announcing his arrival at the doorway.

Sue instantly jerked her head towards the open door. "There's my baby boy." She said softly, opening her arms to the baby that Reed placed within her embrace.

"Daddy."

Johnny looked up at the other soft voice, and was just in time to catch Jessica in his arms she flung herself into his lap. Standing up, he allowed Reed to take his place at Sue's side. So, he stood beside his own father, holding his daughter in his arms.

"Look at my children." Frank said aloud, looking between the daughter holding her newborn, and the son holding his toddler. "All grown up. Your mother would be proud."

Jessica kissed Johnny's cheek, and Johnny grinned. "Yeah, well, we do what we can with what we've got." He said with his cheeky smile.

"I know I'm proud of you." Frank said, turning to Johnny and putting a hand on his shoulder. "You did good, son."

He smiled, his father's blessing on his efforts meaning just as much as Sue's did. "Thanks, Dad."

"She's a beautiful girl, you should be proud of her."

Johnny looked down at his daughter, who playfully stuck her tongue out at him. "I am." He laughed, tickling her sides lightly.

Frank smiled, and then turned to his daughter. "Now, Susan Annabell Richards, I have a bone to pick with you, young lady."

Sue looked up from where she had been mesmerised by her baby. "Why?" She asked.

"Why'd you go wasting your first born son away with a name like Franklin?"

"I'm not going to question the Jonathan part, just so you know." Johnny piped up, before the converstation was steered in that direction.

Sue smiled. "You're my Dad, and I love you." She reminded him.

"Why don't you give him a good name?" Frank suggested.

"Franklin is a good name." She said stubbornly, smiling down at her baby and kissing his forehead.

Frank smiled at her gently when she raised her head again. "You know you don't have to, Susan." He told her, but the pride was already written all over his face.

"It was Reed's idea." She told him, looking up at her husband.

"It was?" Frank questioned, turning to his son-in-law instead.

"Well," Reed explained. "Seeing as he couldn't continue the family name of Storm, he can do it with Franklin instead."

"Well." Frank said, his chest swelling. "Doesn't that make an old man proud?" He smiled.

Sue looked up at him. "You want to hold your grandson?" She asked him.

He grinned. "I guess I'll have to, won't I?" He told her playfully.

As Sue passed Franklin to her fathers arms, Jessica turned closer to Johnny, and yawned widely. "You tired?" Johnny asked her quietly, and Jessica nodded against him. "Right," He announced to the others. "I hate to break up the party guys, but this little girl needs some sleep."

"No, I wanna stay." Jessica whined tiredly.

"You can come back tomorrow." Reed pointed out to her.

She turned to Johnny excitedly. "Really, Dad, can we?" She asked him.

"Course we can." He assured her. "We'll bring Auntie Sue and Franklin a present as well. Say goodnight to everyone." He told her.

"Nu-night!"

----

The car journey on the way home was quiet at first, with the radio playing the recent chart playlist quietly into the car. It wasn't the sort of music that either of them liked, so they kept it quiet, more providing a background than anything. From the height of her booster seat, Jessica looked out of the car window, and then spoke quietly.

"Daddy."

"Yeah, honey?"

"I'm glad Mommy gave me to you."

Even though she knew she could talk about Hallie whenever she wanted to, it was rare that Jessica brought her mother up in conversation. Johnny had given her the pictures that Hallie placed in the folder for him, and she had one of the two of them framed beside her bed, right beside one of her and Johnny together.

"Me too, Firefly." Johnny told her with a smile, taking his eyes off the road for a second as they waited at the traffic lights.

"I like my new family a lot." She decided.

"That's good, kiddo, 'cause you're stuck with us now." He teased her.

She turned to him with curiosity on her face. "Uncle Ben says you're gonna make me a chick magnet." She told him.

Johnny laughed, and then shook his head. "Uncle Ben's talking out of his ass, Jessie." He told her.

She widened her eyes at him. "You have to put a dollar in the swear jar." She told him. "You said 'ass'."

He frowned. "We don't have a swear jar."

"It's next to the new toaster."

He frowned even harder. "I didn't know we had a new toaster."

Jessica looked at him incredulously. "Daddy, you broke the old one." She reminded him. "You burned it. Auntie Sue had to buy another one."

The spark-filled breakfast from three days ago resurfaced in his memory. "Oh yeah." He realised quietly.

"I still love you, though." Jessica assured him. "Even though you broke the toaster."

He smiled at her. "I love you too, Jessie."

"Even though I burnt Uncle Reed's tie?"

They hit traffic, and Johnny turned his head to face his daughter. Every hardship had been worth it, he realised, when it meant that he had this wonderful child to call his own.

He grinned at her. "Especially because you burnt the tie."

END.

**_Well guys, thats it. The story is over. First of all, I have to say thank you to everyone who has reviewed this story:  
BooneShannon4eva; Wolfinson; APerfectGrace; Morgomir; ElektricStorm; Imtweetybird; Raye Sun; Jules, JainaZekk621; Silver Dog Demon; Birdhearted; Liliaeth; Mrs. Jones; Holly EverGreen; Lexa Moon; Looking'AtTheBrightSide; Patienceless; Tricia; LosingTrack; BrokenAngel1753; Goth Child of Zyon; AshleyEH; Chirping Cricket; BollywoodRocks; Stormygirl84; Karista; Penny3; Alexandizzie4eva; TheGiantMushroom; Conversecutiue; Julietdaughter; Sadie; .Sweet Lies.Bitter Truths.; Sd freek; Rogue21493; PadFootCC._**

**_Specials thanks have to go out to Siyavash, just for the plain fact that she gave me the LONGEST review I have ever had! Thank you so much sweetie it was much appreciated; and to Emma, my sister, my brother, my rose in my garden of evil...this story wouldn't have gone ahead without you (and Jessica) constantly keeping me going. You're the best friend in the entire world - I'd be lost without you!_**

**_Now, about the sequal - I shall post it up when I start writing it, which will be soon. I have already been asked some questions about it, so here are the answers:  
1. Jessica's age: She'll be eleven years old in the next story.  
2: Title: It's called Over My Head - another Fray song which is amazing, and the title goes so well with the story  
3. Hallie: Yes, Hallie will be back.  
4. What's it about?  
Well, that's a question..._**

**_Basically, Johnny and Jessica are going to be getting on brilliantly. We're going to see Jessica's best friend, there's a possible love interest for Johnny as well. However whilst this is going on, Johnny has to deal with Hallie's return, and his own fears as a father after Jessica is hurt again. Of course, will Hallie returning, she's got an ultimatum that she delivers, leaving Johnny wondering whether or not he really does still love her like he believes he does; especially when she tells him what she has come back for._**

**_Other characters returning for the haul are Reed and Sue, Ben and Alicia, Franklin and Valeria, Frank Storm, as well as Hallie's sister Cassie, who will make a brief appearance at the start of the story. _**

**_Again, thank you so much to everyone who has read and enjoyed this story. It's been a pleasure to write, and even more of a pleasure to get up and read your reviews when I turn my computer on every morning. I think it's fitting to update this on what, for me, is the loevly and beautiful morning of June 14th, and I hope you all enjoy the sequal when it shows tomorrow! _**

**_Love forever,  
Sammy  
Xxxxxxxx_**


End file.
